


An Act of Revenge for Crimes Uncomitted

by LJMouse



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Empurata, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Too many feels, off stage character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 02:00:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5112167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LJMouse/pseuds/LJMouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alpha Trion's brilliant young apprentice is kidnapped and mutilated. There might have been a briefcase involved. </p><p>This changes everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm still working on everything else. Plot bunny bit me and wouldn't let go. They're evil like that. 
> 
> Continuity mashup. Consider this universe an alternate one, with elements from various other universes. Physically, the mecha resemble those from Transformers Prime.

  
It was raining.  
  
The smell rushed through the door when Wheeljack entered. Sulfuric acid, overlain with moisture and metal and stifling heat. The storm had brought no relief from the miserably muggy summer weather, just more discomfort. Kaon, in summer, was an unpleasant place.  
  
"Ratch!" Wheeljack shouted, from outside the door.  
  
Ratchet made a face even as he was rising from his seat behind the counter. His receptionist had called in, trapped in his home by the acid rain. This wasn't much of an inconvenience, as most of his patients had cancelled their appointments, too. Wheeljack opened the door, but before he could say anything Ratchet snapped, "Get in and shut the door, it stinks out there."  
  
Wheeljack, it seemed, wasn't bright enough to stay out of the rain. He had some sort of a force field shimmering around him, likely repelling some of the acid, but Ratchet could see the engineer's paint nanytes were bleached to the ankles from wading through overflowing gutters. That force field clearly didn't extend all the way to the ground.  
  
Wheeljack ignored Ratchet's admonition and informed him sharply, "There's a mech in the gutter out front!"  
  
"... Slag." Ratchet headed for the door, heedless of the scalding rain.  
  
He thought, at first, it was a corpse. The water was ankle deep and it swirled around the body, gurgling through gaps in the armor and hissing faintly as it reacted to the the energon seeping from raw wounds. However, the mech was still bleeding energon and damaged circuits were sparking weakly.  
  
It wasn't the first time a mortally wounded mech had been dumped in front of the clinic's door. Ratchet, mouth set in a harsh and angry line, grabbed the mech by the shoulders. Wheeljack took the feet, and together, they hoisted him up and carried him through the door.  
  
He didn't have a face.  
  
Or hands.  
  
The wounds were untreated, fresh, and done with surgical precision. Ratchet swore, surveying the damage. The mech's entire face was gone -- optics, nasal arch, upper and lower jaw, all the way back to the cranial vault. It was a huge, gaping, hopeless wound -- the protoform had been deliberately burnt and even the attachment points for tension wires and hydraulics removed. Not only was everything gone, but it'd be a pit of a job to rebuild it.  
  
His arms had been amputated at the wrist.  
  
It got worse. They'd used high voltage electricity to burn out neural wires all the way back to the processor ... and then cause selective damage to the processor itself. Not only had they removed his jaw, they'd destroyed the part of his processor that mapped his jaw. Likewise, they'd fried the wires and processor circuits for his hands.  
  
And they'd destroyed the circuits for one optic. The other, they'd just amputated. Raw wires danged from a weeping hole in his cranial substructure.  
  
"Empurata." Wheeljack sighed, stating the obvious.  
  
"Could have slagging well finished the job." Ratchet, arms folded across his chest, stared at the third bag of medical grade energon filling the mech's veins. It was expensive, but the mech was a large fellow, and he'd lost a lot. Ratchet had no choice but to dump several bags of energon into his veins if he wanted the mech to live.  
  
"Don't think this is a legal punishment," Wheeljack said, "or they'd have actually, err, completed it."  
  
"What, you haven't heard about the Department of Justice's budget cuts?" Ratchet said, with black humor. Then he shook his head, and agreed with Wheeljack, "No, not a legal punishment, or they'd have branded his protoform, too." Ratchet decided that the mech was stable enough now, and stalked to his terminal. Ordering the parts to engineer a repair was going to strain -- wipe out, if he was honest -- the little non-profit clinic's resources. They weren't expensive, particularly with Jacky's free labor thrown in, but the clinic was just that poor.  
  
"Err, should I call the enforcers?"  
  
"Let's talk to the kid first." Kid. Ratchet had discovered, among other things, that his patient was not actually a youngling, but he was barely legally an adult. He was convoy class, but he had few signs of hard labor -- his frame, under the damage caused by both the acidic water and the empurata itself, was good quality. His red paint, with blue highlights, had once been bright, and he'd had quite a few extra dataports (also burned away) but no weapons mods. Definitely a civilian.  


* * *

  
  
The mech jerked awake with a staticky cry from his vocalizer.  
  
"Easy." Ratchet rested a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, big guy."  
  
Wheeljack, across the room, watched with concern. Despite zero signs of any kind of combat mods, the young mech was big enough to be dangerous. And Ratchet had refused to strap him down, citing 'he's had enough trauma.'  
  
He didn't, as Wheeljack had feared, come up fighting. He did cry out again, however, and try to shove Ratchet away. Ratchet, whose reflexes were very well developed, simply blocked the clumsy swipe of a claw with one of his heavy-duty pauldrons without letting go of the mech.  
  
"My name is Ratchet," the physician said, his name laced with all the glyphs that identified his profession and his surprisingly high class degree from Iacon's Medical University.  
  
"I'm ... I'm in the hospital?" The mech said, turning his face -- with its new large, single, blue optic -- in Ratchet's direction.  
  
"No." Ratchet sighed. "You're in my clinic in Kaon. Nearest actual hospital is half a day's travel away."  
  
"But we're pretty good at fixing people." Wheeljack put in.  
  
"That's my friend Jacky -- Wheeljack -- he's a frame engineer. Designs and installs mods. He did your rebuild, at least, what we could do for you."  
  
Silence, from the mech. Then he raised both hands and stared down at them. All Ratchet had been able to give him was two pincers, and the hydraulics would be activated by neural lines in his upper arms that had once controlled his wrist flexion. He'd need to learn to use them. "It wasn't a nightmare."  
  
"Afraid not. Got a name, kid?"  
  
"Orion." The mech's field was suddenly terrified, but also angry. "Why did they do this to me?"  
  
He reached, reflexively, for his face, and banged a stiff claw into his single optic. Ratchet winced, grabbed the claw to prevent further damage, and said, "It's as bad as you think. Don't break your optic, we just installed it."  
  
"Empurata. But ... but ... I had permission." The young mech's anger was stronger. "I followed the rules! Alpha Trion -- Alpha Trion fought for me, and won! I don't understand. There should have been a trial, a hearing -- they just grabbed me. They grabbed me from my apartment and did this!"  
  
"I don't think it was an officially sanctioned punishment. Who'd you piss off?"  
  
"Nobody."  
  
"You know Alpha Trion?" Wheeljack asked, pushing off the wall and padding closer.  
  
"He's ... he's my ... I'm his apprentice."  
  
The engineer and the medic exchanged a look. Perhaps this young mech had done nothing wrong, but Alpha Trion had been waging a long war against certain higher classes. This could be retribution for some of his recent court battles. The master archivist was untouchable by any measure, but his apprentice might just have been another matter.  
  
"Your comms should be working," Ratchet said, gently, even as he guided Orion to sit up. Orion tried, again, to touch his face, but this time Ratchet was ready and grabbed his arm before he could damage himself with a clumsy blow from his own claw.  
  
"They mutilated me," the young mech said, field suddenly blazing. "Why? I've always played within the rules! I've never broken any laws!"  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"This isn't a legal punishment! And they said it wouldn't be fixable!"  
  
"Not ... entirely ... true." Ratchet sighed. "But it would require surgical modification of your processor itself, and there's no guarantee your intellect and personality would emerge intact."  
  
In a small voice, the kid asked, "I can still work. Can't I?"  
  
"Findin' work as an empurata's gonna be hard, but we'll help you, if what you say is true," Wheeljack said. "People are gonna assume you're ... tainted ... convicted of a crime. They do this to mecha who can't remember their station in life, an' t' real nasty criminals. The former usually got bad enemies, the latter ... nobody wants t' hire. We will help ... do what we can."  
  
"... I am an apprentice archivist. I'd be a journeyman in a few orns. Alpha Trion intends to keep me on once I get my journeyman's glyph!" There was defiance in the young mech's voice and field, as well as boiling anger. "It was not easy to get this far! And I did it all legally!"  
  
"Oh." Ratchet scrubbed his face with his hands. "Errm. They fried your dataports, kid."  
  
Silence. For a long moment. Then, "Can I get new ones?"  
  
"You're missing the neurocircuits to support them. That'd take a mnemosurgeon to replace."  
  
"I've ... I've got money. I've saved!" He said this a bit anxiously, then added, with a flash of real fear, "It's probably more than I've got."  
  
"Also runs the risk of changing who you are, kid." Ratchet said.  
  
"Maybe a loan ..."  
  
Wheeljack knew how much that kind of work cost. It was more credits than most mechanisms made in a lifetime ... he highly doubted an apprentice archivist's small savings would even come close. Perhaps, he hoped, Alpha Trion might help the kid. He didn't have the heart to tell the young mech that he'd never qualify for a loan for even far smaller amounts; they'd given him enough harsh truths today. He could find out about the functionalists' stranglehold on the financial system, and their unfair policies, later.  


* * *

  
  
The young mech sat on a gurney in a corner, arms wrapped around his legs and head resting on his knees. He hadn't said a word since he'd sent a message to his master, and his field radiated fierce misery.  
  
Wheeljack pulled Ratchet aside, out of the kid's earshot, and said, softly, "Think he's telling the truth?"  
  
"Jackie, you don't have the skills." Ratchet frowned at his friend. "Or the mods. It'll take a mnemnosurgeon of the highest caliber, and I can't think of one I'd trust enough to refer him to. Assuming he has the credits."  
  
"I'm just ..." Wheeljack's shoulders slumped. "It's not fair."  
  
Grimly, Ratchet said, "You know how he keeps emphasizing law? And legal? Most mecha who talk like that are the ones who are breaking laws left and right, that, or they're the kind who find ways around the law -- they stay within the letter of the law while flouting the moral intent." It was a verbal tell he'd learned from a friend, a detective with the enforcers in Iacon.  
  
"Or they're used to being accused of breaking the laws, and they have no intention of doing so," Wheeljack shot back.  
  
Ratchet shook his head. "I'm sympathetic -- this is the cruelest kind of torture -- but I expect he may have crossed the wrong mecha, because he was thinking they couldn't touch him if he didn't break any laws. And he found out the hard way that the law is only a tool for the powerful. They've got other tools too."  
  
"Or they were trying to punish his master."  
  
"He's probably one of hundreds of apprentices under Alpha Trion ... I'm sure the Master Archivist has plenty just like him."  
  
"And even if he did piss off the wrong mecha, that doesn't mean he's a bad mech."  
  
Ratchet was about to question the kind of character that would bring a mere apprentice archivist to the attention of the high and mighty when the door chimed. He turned, and hurried for the front of the clinic, concerned that it might be an emergency that had just walked through his door. It was still raining four days after the start of the storm, and his receptionist hadn't shown up yet.  Nobody was moving except by underground tunnels, and half of those were flooded. His only patients had been emergencies, so he certainly wasn't expecting the mech who stood, peering about curiously, in the center of his empty waiting room.  
  
The Master Archivist was tall, his helm fins nearly touching the ceiling. He would need to duck to go through the doorways. Ratchet, absently, remembered he was a shuttle, though he'd never heard of Alpha Trion traveling offworld in recent times. A suborbital flight did explain how the shuttle had gotten here so fast, but not _why_.  
  
He was white. With gold filigree. He dripped acid rain on Ratchet's clinic floor, his engines steamed, and optics of the purest blue studied the medic with startling intensity. "... I see he's in the right place," the archivist said, deep voice surprisingly soft and musing.  
  
"Sir!" Ratchet stammered, and dropped to one knee. Behind him, Wheeljack dropped too, with a gasped greeting. Both bowed their heads. This was a former Prime, the oldest living mech among a very long lived race and -- Legend had it -- he'd been forged by Primus himself. While neither of them were particularly reverent under normal circumstances, Ratchet was inclined to be respectful to Primes and Wheeljack had at least a few self-preservation instincts.  
  
"Rise." That voice was sonorous, warm and rich with glyphs that claimed wisdom, age and power and -- surprising to Ratchet -- humility.  
  
He scrambled to his feet.  
  
"My young apprentice has told me what has happened. This is unprecedented." Alpha Trion seemed genuinely mournful.  
  
"Yes." Ratchet blinked, then answered in a rush, "Yes, he's here -- Orion, right?"  
  
He was babbling. He was babbling at Alpha Trion. Ratchet, who prided himself on his personal dignity, shut his mouth with a click, and tried for calm. At best, he'd expected the Master Archivist to send a servant to collect the kid, if he didn't abandon him entirely. Ratchet had never expected he'd find Alpha Trion himself, on a raining summer afternoon, in his waiting room. If he'd known, perhaps he could have spent a few more credits on a few more repairs for the kid ... and mopped the rust from the corners, maybe put a fresh coat of paint on the walls and replaced a few of the burnt out light bulbs.  
  
However, he reminded himself firmly, there was little they could have done for Orion short of hiring a mnemnosurgeon. Wheeljack had fabricated the mech's claws, optic, and fuel intake from decent quality components (some of them second hand, but sterilized and refurbished before installation) and Ratchet knew his surgical skills were excellent. Ratchet had installed them, as well as fashioning a mask to hide the mech's gruesome lack of a face. And they'd done it all before he'd known that the mech had any political connections. Or a bank account.  
  
"I am certain your work was of the highest caliber," Alpha Trion said, as if he'd read Ratchet's mind. "I am relieved he found you, rather than another."  
  
Ratchet blinked at that. Relieved that he found him? Why? He didn't know Alpha Trion. Ratchet knew his record was good, but overall it was unremarkable. He wasn't the only skilled physician in the world, or even the only one with a charity clinic in the slums of Kaon.  
  
He boggled, again, that Alpha Trion was here in the slums of Kaon, on a rainy afternoon, with grey streaks from the acid on his wings. Alpha Trion was _dripping on his floor._  
  
 "May I see him?"  
  
"Oh -- of course!" Ratchet considered the water still trickling from Alpha Trion's frame. He liked to keep his clinic clean, and, he realized, he was being rude. "Errm. Would you like a towel?"  
  
Wheeljack put in, "We have a wash rack you can use ..."  
  
Alpha Trion, despite the fact that the acidic water probably itched and most mechanisms would have eagerly jumped at the chance to shower off, simply accepted the towel that Ratchet pulled out of a supply closet. "I have survived worse than rain. I would like to see my student."  
  
Ratchet, after due consideration of the mech's large size, handed him a second towel, and then led him into the clinic proper. Anyone else, he would have made shower first, but he could always mop the sulfur dioxide laced water up after Alpha Trion left. The tiles of the clinic floor were made to be durable, and would not be damaged, though he could do without the stink in his workspace. And it wasn't like Orion, who had been thoroughly soaked right down to the protoform, hadn't covered everything in sulfurous water earlier. The smell, unfortunately, lingered, and permeated everything.  
  
Orion looked up, then perked up, when he saw his master. Though his single optic and mask had no expression -- the neural circuits necessary for translating emotions to facial expressions were literally burned away -- his body language changed from depressed to relieved. "Sir!"  
  
"Orion." Alpha Trion, too, looked relieved. "When you disappeared, I feared the worst."  
  
Orion rose, scrambling to his feet, though he was a bit unsteady. It appeared he planned to kneel as Ratchet and Wheeljack had, but Alpha Trion swept him into a tight embrace, fierce and close. He stated, "I feared you dead!"  
  
Orion's field flared with surprise; he was every bit as shocked as Ratchet was. It appeared that he was no mere student to the ancient mech, though Orion clearly hadn't been expecting Alpha Trion's reaction.  
  
Finally, the archivist released him, and stepped back. He rested his hands on Orion's pauldrons and regarded him gravely. "This ... this should not have happened. It was most unexpected and I am sorry I did not anticipate it."  
  
"Why ... why me?" Orion gazed up at his master. "I don't understand. I've done nothing."  
  
"Is someone trying t' get revenge?" Wheeljack demanded, "Angry at you, sir, and taking it out on the kid?"  
  
"No." Alpha Trion frowned. "I have enemies, but they would have taken credit had they done this. None have. I expect the motivations were different, though why this and not death..." he frowned. "The result would be the same, but this was personal. An act of revenge, I believe, but not for any crimes you have yet committed, child."  
  
"I don't understand." Orion's voice was very small.  
  
Alpha Trion sighed, and turned his attention to Ratchet. "There is not a mnemnosurgeon alive that I would trust with Orion Pax's processor. Better that he remain as he is than suffer worse damage."  
  
Ratchet was inclined to agree, having seen the disastrous complications of processor repairs before, but he offered tentatively, for Orion's benefit, "I can name a few colleagues who might be able to perform the work, if money was no object."

The Master Archivist was wealthy; if he cared about Orion, perhaps he would pay. Ratchet, and Alpha Trion, might think that the repairs were too dangerous, but they were not the ones who would have to live in Orion's mutilated body. Perhaps it would be best if they let Orion make that decision for himself.  
  
However, Alpha Trion's wings flicked back in a contemptuous gesture; his wings were so large that this caused a gust of air through the room. "They could do the work, but I would not trust them. Should they learn ..." he trailed off. Ratchet wondered what it was that Alpha Trion wasn't saying; it was obvious that he was censoring his own comments. "No. Not now. In the future, perhaps someone will surface who could be trusted to do the work, and if that day comes, I will help with any finances needed. For now, there are worse fates, my young apprentice ..." he glanced at Ratchet, and said firmly. "He will need an occupation."  
  
"Not many will hire him. Even if you yourself spoke for him. Sir. Though if he can use you as a reference, it will help, and I may be able to provide some leads?"  
  
"You will hire him."  
  
"I ..." Ratchet didn't particularly want to argue with a mech this powerful, but he summoned the nerve anyway, and said, "Sir. This clinic functions from funds raised through donations and fundraisers. Our funds are limited. I cannot even afford to pay Wheeljack; he donates his time. My salary is a pittance; enough to keep me fueled and painted and that's about it. Many of my patients work off the small cost of their repairs by cleaning and running errands for me, so I do not lack for unskilled labor. How am I to afford to hire your apprentice, especially since I do not need him?"  
  
Ratchet had pissed off his share of senators, nobles, and enforcers with harsher words. Speaking the truth to a mechanism whose job was to be dispassionate, analytical, and accurate was -- hopefully -- not going to have severe repercussions. Besides, it needed to be said.  
  
Orion added, "Alpha Trion, I would prefer to stay with you, sir. I understand ..." here, he paused, and his vocalizer hissed with static, and his field flared with fear and a terrible grief, "Sir, please! Please don't, don't  ... I understand that I will not be able to perform the function that I trained for. However, perhaps I could be of assistance in other ways. I could ... I could find something useful to do. And I'd stay out of sight. Sir, please ..."  
  
There was something terribly sad in the ancient mech's optics. "It doesn't suit you to beg, Orion."  
  
Orion's back struts straightened. He said, in a firmer tone of voice, though his field was no less upset, "Sir, I would like to continue in your employment. I believe I can still be of use."  
  
"Better." Alpha Trion smiled, very gently, at the single blue optic staring up at him. "Do not ever grovel, Orion, or think yourself less than others. You have ..." the archivist stopped. There was a good bit of distress in his own field now. "I do not know what your future holds. The pathways of time have diverged in a way unforseen. But you remain one of the brightest young mecha, one of the most decent, that I will ever meet."  
  
With a chill, Ratchet remembered just how old Alpha Trion was. And he recalled some of the other legends about the mecha, including that he wasn't, entirely, of this world. For him to proclaim Orion one of the most decent, and most intelligent, mechanisms he'd ever met was something remarkable.  
  
Alpha Trion turned his attention to Ratchet, again, though he spared a long look (with a sudden flare of recognition in his field) for Wheeljack. "I believe, Orion, you are in the place you need to be. Ratchet -- I will see that your clinic is funded. You will receive enough to pay Orion, to increase your own salary to a reasonable amount, to pay Wheeljack for his work, and to expand this clinic. I ask only that you find an use for Orion, and that you will look out for him."  
  
Ratchet quirked an optic ridge up. "I'm not a nannybot."  
  
"I will see that it is worth your while, and Orion has never been prone to creating trouble. If anything, he is already mature beyond his years."  
  
Orion protested, "He doesn't want me here! And sir, you shouldn't be paying for my welfare ..."  
  
Alpha Trion reached out, and cupped a hand around Orion's helm in a gentle touch. His thumb traced the seam between the dead metal of Orion's mask, and the living tissue of his natural armor. "Make yourself useful, Orion."  
  
"No! Don't leave me!"  
  
Then, heedless of the rain which still fell outside, Alpha Trion exited the recovery ward, ducked through the exit, and launched aloft with a roar of engines.  
  
Orion had tried to follow him, but stopped in the waiting room. He sobbed one short, sharp, scared cry, which he bit off as if he was trying to hide the terror he felt. There was no concealing the fear in his field, however, nor the terrible sense of _loss_. He tried to cover his face with his hands, but succeeded only in whacking himself in the face with his claws.  
  
Ratchet, torn between the impulse to run outside after the departing ancient shuttle and the impulse to throw something, stood helplessly in the middle of the room behind Orion.

Orion stared after the archivist, and did not move.


	2. Chapter 2

The rain had stopped.

He had a hangover.

Ratchet lay on his berth, staring up at the rust-streaked ceiling of his small berth room, and listened to the absence of the drumming of the rain. Without rain to keep mecha inside, and with the pent up energy of five days of storms to inspire them to stupidity, the day would likely be very busy. 

Right on cue, somebody pounded on the currently locked front door. Ratchet, with an oath, rolled to his feet. His private berth room was off the recovery ward, so when he opened his door he saw that Orion was standing up too.

The kid had spent the night curled up on a berth. Ratchet had checked on him periodically. Ratchet wasn't sure he'd slept at all; his optic had been lit through the night, but he hadn't moved much. Ratchet had offered the "kid" high grade since he was, legally, an adult, but he'd declined.

"What is the point?" Orion had replied, softly. "I cannot taste it." 

'Tasting it' hadn't been the point, and given the caliber of the high grade Ratchet had on hand, lack of taste receptors might actually have been a benefit. However, he hadn't argued. More for him, after all. 

Orion had also declined stronger sleeping aids.

The kid asked, now, "Should I ... stay out of sight?"

"What?" Ratchet blinked, then scowled. "No. Stick around. Err -- stand in a corner and look menacing."

Orion nodded once, with a bob of his optic, and took up a position against a wall in the waiting room. He was tall, certainly, and empurata were known to be mecha with nothing to lose and therefore a willingness towards violence, but Orion still didn't manage to loom in any particular fashion. His field was just too non-threatening. With a sigh, Ratchet strode to the front door, unlocked it, and cautiously cracked it open. 

Megatron stood there, one fist raised up. Beside him -- supported by him, actually -- was the slender form of a silver and red seeker, in rather poor shape. Ratchet had seen that pattern of dents, scuffs, and scrapes, and silvery liquid smears, many times before. 

Ratchet opened the door the rest of the way. Megatron was not an enemy, nor even a threat, though no friend. Ratchet trusted the gladiator about as far as he could throw him. That was, even with Ratchet's sturdy medic's frame, wasn't far. However, Megatron was no rapist, and he had a decent spark, even if that spark was tainted with a real penchant for violence. 

Ratchet demanded of Megatron, "What happened to him?"

"Found him in a gutter." Megatron guided the seeker through the door carefully. The seeker didn't seem entirely coherent, though he was moving. "Think he's full of drugs."

"Yes, yes, I can see that." 

"Never seen one before, up close." Megatron said this conversationally, as if the seeker was some sort of exotic animal. 

"I treated quite a few during the war." Ratchet didn't find seekers at all exotic, though he did hope this one spoke Standard. Many of them only spoke Vosian, which bore little resemblance to any other Cybertronian language. The seeker wasn't actually the most unusual mech to end up in his clinic, either, though he came close. Ratchet said impatiently, "Get him in, get him in."

The seeker stumbled, nearly fell, and Orion rushed forward to duck under his other arm. Orion kept his claws tightly closed and just put one arm around the seeker's back, under his wings. With Megatron on the other side, and Ratchet leading the way, they made it into the treatment room.

"He's not going to like this," Ratchet warned, as he readied a syringe full of antidote. The seeker wobbled dizzily on a berth, and gave up an arm without fight or even apparent realization that Ratchet was sliding a needle into his energon line.

Once the antidote hit his system, which took all of a few nanoclicks, the seeker reacted with a loud groan and then immediate and violent purging.

Megatron took an alarmed step back. 

Orion thrust a waste bin into the seeker's hands, though a good sized splash hit the floor. Orion calmly said, "I'll get a mop." 

After Orion had disappeared down the hall, Megatron quirked an optic ridge up at the doctor. "Patient or staff?"

"Who, Orion?"

"Not many people will hire empurata. Or treat them."

"He's both. I'm hiring him -- he seems like a good kid, and he's smart."

"Good kid. Empurata. You know that'll bring trouble?"

"Since when have I ever been afraid of trouble?" Ratchet shot back, raising his voice a bit to be heard as the seeker noisily and dramatically heaved into his waste bin. 

Megatron just snorted.

The seeker, finally, switched over from upchucking large amounts of half-digested high grade to a more coherent response. Unfortunately, that response was a frantic and half-coherent, "No, no no, NO!" 

He fired his foot thrusters in a panic and went backwards off the berth -- straight into Orion, who was returning with a bucket of solvent hanging from one arm and a mop in his claws. The bucket went flying, and Orion, the mop, and the seeker crashed to the floor. 

The seeker screamed and thrashed, and Orion reacted with rather good, by Ratchet's estimation, reflexes -- he wrapped his arms around the seeker's middle, hoisted him up so his flailing arms and legs were aimed away from him, and pulled the seeker tight against his chest. The seeker's thrusters continued to fire with enough force that they both slid across the floor in erratic directions, and the seeker screamed in a panic, but Orion didn't let go. Had the seeker launched airborne in the tight confines of the room, he likely would have harmed himself and damaged Ratchet's ceiling.

"Shhh." Orion said, clawed hands pulled up tight to the seeker's chest, holding him in place. They crashed into a wall, but Orion didn't let go. "You're safe here. We're not going to hurt you, but you must calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down!" The seeker shouted, but he was, actually, calmer.

"I'm asking, not telling."

It shouldn't have worked. Restraining a victim of assault was not, generally, a wise idea. Restraining a high strung seeker (and in Ratchet's experience, they were all hyperactive glitches down to the last one) was downright foolish. Therefore, Ratchet was already reaching into his subspace for a sedative. However, Ratchet could feel Orion's field from across the room, and it was steady, calm, and nonthreatening ... and protective. He paused, syringe in hand, amazed at what he could sense both from Orion and the seeker. The seeker's field was settling rapidly by the nanoklick. 

"I'll let you go as soon as you stop fighting." Orion spoke in a matter-of-fact voice. 

The seeker, to Ratchet's surprise, fell still. Ratchet put the syringe away.

Orion's arms relaxed. "Good, good. Can you stand?"

The seeker did not answer. Instead, he twisted to the side, but not far enough to avoid purging on both himself and Orion. Orion did not react in any way save move a fisted claw from the seeker's chest to the middle of his back, and rub comfortingly with his forearm. 

"I believe that is a side effect of the medication that Ratchet gave you to clear the syk from your system ..." Orion explained. 

"I don't do drugs!" 

Ratchet snorted skeptically. Orion, however, said calmly, "Then you were drugged, and now you are not."

"They forced me! I'm going to dismantle every last one of them into their component parts!" The young seeker said, fury in his voice and a wild swirl to his field. 

"You are safe here," Orion said, steady and calm. "My name is Orion Pax. These are my friends Ratchet ..." he glanced at Megatron over the seeker's head and said, "and a very powerful warrior, who will slag anyone who tries to touch you right now."

"My name is Megatron. I found you, in an alley near my home." Megatron put in. "Ratchet's clinic doesn't charge if you don't have the funds, and Ratchet's good." 

"Will you tell me your name?" Orion asked. "You don't have to."

"... Starscream." 

"Okay, Starscream." Orion shifted his weight. "Do you think you can stand up?" 

"I can stand!" 

"Good." Orion rose, then offered his claw to the seeker, who'd remained huddled on the floor. Starscream reached for it, then realized it was an artificial claw and not a natural forged hand, froze, and looked up. For the first time, he saw that Orion was an empurata.

Starscream recoiled in surprise, jerking his hand away. 

Orion said something in Vosian, startling Ratchet -- he'd never heard of a non-seeker who spoke it fluently. The trills and hisses were unmistakable, however. 

Starscream froze. Then he said, shortly, "Your accent is horrible."

"So I have heard." Orion smiled faintly. 

Starscream relaxed, with a snort. "Still, for a wingless cripple, you speak it better than most."

Orion, tall and featureless, with his paint still ruined by acid, and fresh scars on either side of his single optic, looked a good bit like the villain of a dark horror movie as he stepped forward. His field, however, remained bright and reassuring. Claws still clenched in a fist, he reached for Starscream, and rested his forearm across Starscream's back. With a gentle push he got Starscream turned around, and he guided him back to the gurney.

Ratchet, who had been holding his ventilations, was duly impressed. He'd expected a good bit more drama, possibly followed by a shrieking flight out a door and into the skies. The seeker did need actual medical attention; his scans showed that the mech's valve was badly torn, and whoever had brutally assaulted him had also broken several armor mounts on his thighs and fractured his arm. The pattern suggested that he'd been assaulted by a very large mech, or possibly multiple mecha.

"I can pay," the seeker said, stiffly, to Ratchet, as he sat down on the gurney. "You will be well compensated for repairing me ... discreetly. I do require the utmost discretion, of course."

"Out." Ratchet jerked at the door, meaning both Megatron and Orion. "Go. And Megatron, thank you."

Megatron left. When Orion tried to follow, however, the seeker latched onto his arm with a sob of fear that was quickly hidden.

"Starscream, you most certainly have a right to privacy. Orion will stay if you want, if you wish to waive that right in his regard," Ratchet said carefully. He had no doubt of Orion's willingess to help; the young mech's field was full of protective concern.

"Don't go!" Starscream said, instantly, to Orion, his words holding terse command. Then he amended this to a sharp, "Please."

"I will stay," Orion replied, quietly. 

Orion stood beside him, a comforting forearm resting on his shoulder, as Ratchet began a more in-depth examination. Starscream flinched from Ratchet's touches, and hissed Vosian curses occasionally, but he clearly found comfort in Orion's presence. He was cooperative with Ratchet, even if he bristled and snarled and obviously viewed Ratchet as a threat.

"Well," Ratchet said, an hour later. "I think I've done everything I can. I've collected samples for the enforcers, if you want me to turn them in."

"Of course I would! They violated me!" Starscream sounded offended that they thought he might not. 

"Not all mecha do," Orion said. "Assault is ... complicated ... sometimes. In a perfect world, it would always be reported, and the perpetrators charged and convicted, but we do not live in a perfect world. And you had mentioned ... discretion." 

"Nothing complicated about it," the seeker snapped, quite indignant. "They kidnapped and forced me." Starscream considered the matter for a long moment then said, "I will express my needs for privacy to the local enforcers. I am certain they will be accommodating."

"You do that." Ratchet resisted rolling his optics, but only barely. "I'll give the enforcers a call for you."


	3. Chapter 3

The seeker was terrified, and trying to hide it with bluster and bravado.   
  
Orion sat with him, compelled to offer what little comfort he could. The young mech was beautiful, with his backswept wings and long limbs, and Orion could sense a bright intelligence to go with that stunning frame, and a firm sense of authority. Yet, someone had hurt him.  Orion wanted to protect him, against anything and everything that might hurt him again.

  
There was nothing he could do, however. He couldn't go back in time to change what had happened, could he?  
  
So, instead, he simply sat with Starscream, waiting for the enforcers to arive.  Ratchet seemed to think Starscream wouldn't get very far with them; Orion thought it was worth a try, on moral grounds, to see that the criminals who'd raped Starscream saw justice. However, he didn't think that justice would be confidential, as Starscream desired. Starscream, Orion assumed, would need to testify in court, and that testimony would be public record.   
  
"Where'd you learn Vosian?" The seeker asked, as they waited in a small private room off the recovery bay. Starscream sat on the berth, knees to his chest and arms around them.  
  
Orion, beside him in a chair, smiled at the memory of Alpha Trion tutoring him on the language. Well, he would have smiled, if he had been able to. He didn't have a mouth left, a fact he kept forgetting until a simple act like smiling gave him a HUD full of very painful error messages.  
  
His distress must have showed up in his field, because the seeker said sharply, "What is it? Nevermind. Forget I asked."  
  
"It's okay." Orion tried to scrub at his face with his hands, and smacked himself accidentally with the numb and awkward fingers of his ... of what had once been his right hand, but which was now a hard metal claw, with three stiff fingers. It hurt, and he hissed.   
  
"What the slag?" The seeker demanded. "Don't do that!"   
  
"Not intentional, believe me." Orion folded his arms across his chest. "I keep forgetting I don't have a face. Or hands."  
  
"Forgetting?"  
  
"This ... this just happened. To me. The empurata."  
  
"What did you do?"  
  
"Come again?" He blinked, not quite understanding.  
  
"What was your crime?"  
  
"Nothing. I did nothing."   
  
"Falsely convicted, huh?" Starscream didn't seem surprised. "That's happened to a few people I've met. The authorities don't like you, or if you're not productive enough,  or you don't fit in, or they think they're something physically, mentally or morally wrong with you, or you just piss off the wrong person in power, they make up a reason to get rid of you."  
  
"I was never convicted. Or accused of something. I didn't do anything." Orion didn't want to let his own misery out; the seeker had been through enough, and he didn't want to dump his own woes on Starscream. And he had a hard time believing that empurata could be committed on a mech simply because he'd angered the wrong person in power. However, in his own defense, he offered a terse explanation, "I was kidnapped. They did this to me. They said it as revenge for crimes I hadn't committed yet. I don't understand."  
  
"Crimes you hadn't committed yet ...?" Starscream scoffed. "What, did they have a time machine? Or a quantum mirror, like in a child's tale, to see the future? That's just slag."  
  
"It's what they said." Orion leaned back in his chair. He fought down a shudder as he remembered being jerked awake by intruders in his room, being hauled bodily into the night, being hacked apart, burned and sliced, while fully conscious, by a mech who'd giggled as he worked ...  
  
"Pit. At least I'm still me. It's not the end of my world." Starscream said with feeling. "They took your life from you."  
  
"They violated you!" Orion was horrified that Starscream would minimize what had been done to him.   
  
Starscream snorted expressively. "And for that, they will pay. They will pay dearly. What they did to you was a lot worse. And it was just as much of a violation, if I do say so myself. Plus they said they were punishing you for things you hadn't done yet? If that logic made any sense, they might as well send me to the Pit right now, because I'm sure to get into plenty of trouble in the future."  
  
Orion blinked, perhaps the only expression still available to him.   
  
Starscream uncurled a bit and reached out, to Orion's surprise, and gripped his shoulder. "You're trying to make me feel better. Who's helping you?"  
  
"... Ratchet?" Orion said, uncertainly. But Starscream had a point. Ratchet, while compassionate, wasn't exactly supportive. The medic's idea of being helpful was to offer him high grade or a sleep aid. Orion, having been violently kidnapped from his own berth once in the last few days, had little desire to compromise his alertness with chemicals. If he never recharged again it would be too soon. "And Wheeljack. You haven't met him, but he's very nice."  
  
Starscream scoffed. "No friends? What of your friends? Where are they? Mine will be here as soon as they get flight clearance."  
  
"I have friends." He did, too, and he'd sent them messages. Not one had answered, and he was getting a bit worried. Ariel, in particular, should have responded by now.  
  
Starscream snorted, but didn't ask the same question Orion was wondering: "Where are they?"  
  
At that moment, a dour looking tank stepped through the door. He was painted with the black and white markings of an enforcer, though his whites were dingy from travel and his black pauldrons and helm bore grey streaks from Kaon's ever-present acidic rain. He scanned the room, saw them, and headed over.   
  
"Took you long enough," Starscream snapped.  
  
The tank stared at him. Orion, who'd realized that the tank bore the ensignia of the Iaconian Enforcers, would have face-palmed if he'd been able. He was very unsurprised when the tank growled, "Do you know how far of a drive it is from Iacon to Kaon? I've been on the road for four days."  
  
"... Sir. My friend believed you were a Kaonian Enforcer."  
  
The tank bristled. "Do I look like my aft and my helm have been translocated?"   
  
Starscream giggled, a bit hysterically. "Sorry. I'm waiting for the locals."  
  
"... good luck with that." The tank frowned at Starscream before turning his attention to Orion. "You are Orion Pax, yes?"  
  
"That would be me. I expected to be contacted by teleconference ..."  
  
"They decided I should speak to you in person, as soon as your condition was stable. Ratchet had advised you were ..." the tank hesitated, before saying diplomatically, "... rather badly injured and in need of extensive surgery."  
  
"Yes." Orion replied, for there was nothing else he could think to say.   
  
"I am Investigator Treadwell," he introduced himself. "Perhaps we should go somewhere ... private?"  
  
There was  a flare of anxiety from Starscream. The seeker did not want to be left alone. Orion didn't blame him; he didn't want to be alone with a stranger (enforcer or not) either, and both Ratchet and Wheeljack were busy in a surgery on a badly injured gladiator.   
  
He glanced over at Starscream and said, "If it's okay with Starscream, I would prefer to have his company."  
  
Starscream reached out and squeezed his arm.   
  
"You are friends?" The investigator asked.  
  
"We just met, but we have a commonality of experiences." Orion nodded at Starscream. "I assume you are here to investigate my assault. Ratchet will have sent you the technical details."  
  
Treadwell folded his arms across his chest. "Four days ago, I was sent to a crime scene in Iacon."   
  
Orion's spark clenched.  
  
"Were you aware that others were harmed?"  
  
"Oh, Pit. Like me ...? Who? I haven't heard from Ariel and she should have answered right away."  
  
"The femme Ariel is deceased, as is your friend Dion and several others. We have not been able to determine the relationship of the others to you. Perhaps you will be able to assist with that."  
  
Orion jerked as painful errors filled his processor; he was no longer able to express shock and grief with facial expressions, and the attempt had hurt. His field, however, flared wildly, in a blatant display of his emotional state, and he cried out, "My .... my friends. I've known them all my life! Why? Why?" And then his voice was lost to static.  
  
Starscream rose from the berth, put his arms around Orion, and glared over his shoulder at the investigator. "You could have been more tactful."  
  
"I needed to see how he would respond."   
  
"What do you think he did, mutilate himself after killing his friends?" Starscream hissed. "Have you no compassion?"   
  
Treadwell sighed. "I wanted to know if he was surprised by the news. Orion, can I get you something? Coolant?"  
  
"Can't taste it." Orion said, shortly, as he struggled to control his field. He hadn't realized how comforting taste was until he'd lost the ability to taste, or smell, anything. "And I'm not overheating."   
  
Treadwell shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, then said, "I have questions for you. I know they will be difficult to answer ..."  
  
"He should have legal counsel," Starscream interrupted. "Before he answers anything."  
  
"I'm sure that's not necessary ..." Treadwell frowned at the seeker. "And the quicker we get information from him, the more chance we have at catching ..."  
  
"Yes. It is." Starscream flicked his wings dismissively. "His friends are dead, and you wouldn't be questioning him in person if he wasn't a suspect. You'd have had the locals do it, or you'd have done a video conference. You're trying to figure out if you need to take him into custody. If you thought that time was important, you wouldn't have driven here, you'd have caught a shuttle, and you would have spoken to him much earlier."  
  
"Surely, he can't think I did it!" Orion said protested, angered by the mere idea. Ariel. Oh, Ariel. Bright and beautiful Ariel. Had they tortured her? Terrified her? She'd been his friend since before he could remember, and now he knew why his closest friend had not answered his messages. And Dion, who was betrothed to Ariel, with the bonding ceremony set for a vorn from now, as soon as both of them graduated. Dion, bold and brave and honest to the very core of his spark. The horror at their deaths, at the  _loss_ , threatened to overwhelm him.  
  
"I doubt he thinks you did it. But he has to determine if you were ... involved. Maybe you knew something. Maybe you and your friends were part of a criminal ring and this was retribution. He doesn't know, but he's looking for answers."  
  
"None of that is true!" Orion protested.  
  
Starscream's wings flicked again. Contempt laced his field and his wing-language was that of a highly ranking mech interrogating a very inferior subordinate when he asked the investigator, "Did you freeze his financial accounts?"   
  
Treadwell blinked, then said, "Yes. Pending a hearing as to his legal status."   
  
"My ... legal status?"   
  
Starscream snorted elegantly at Orion, then explained, "Of course they reported you to the Council for Function. You're crippled. Doesn't matter if it was a crime that caused your damage, it doesn't matter from a legal standpoint that someone assaulted you, all that matters is that, going forward, you'll be a drain on your society's wealth due to your physical damage. If they determine your net contribution to the economy is negative, they will declare you a defective. Should you refuse humane euthanasia, you will be treated as if you do not exist and they will _make sure_ you do not ... utilize ... any public resources. You have no idea how restrictive the laws have recently become."  
  
"But I earned those credits." Orion couldn't believe they would be taken away. "And I'm not a defective!"   
  
He'd never used the term 'defective' himself, considering it a repugnant word, but he'd heard it used to describe mecha who had very severe processor damage or congenital defects, who were psychotic or sociopathic, or who were born with severe physical abnormalities. Mecha, in other words, who were a burden to society. He was none of those!   
  
"Your credits will be given to your next of kin. They can, if they chose, support you. Or not. They are not obligated to. Legally, you will be treated as if you were an Empty, and one need not fuel the dead. They could lock you up in a cell and let you die of starvation, or put a bullet through your spark, and it would be entirely legal." Starscream seemed to know far more about this than Orion did. His anger was unmistakable, too. His field filled the room.   
  
"I don't have any kin," Orion replied, numbly, with a fierce stab of grief for his late creators. The only child of two mecha who had been vat born, he'd been left an orphan without family when his creators had died. He'd been sent to a creche, and trained as a laborer due to his size, but his test scores and interest in antiquities had drawn the attention of Alpha Trion. It had taken some political maneuvering by the master archivist and some very hard work -- perfect test scores -- by Orion to earn a place as an apprentice.  
  
His creators would have been proud of him, he'd thought. Ariel, who'd kept in touch even when he was assigned to the creche, had certainly been. (Oh, Ariel!)   
  
He missed his creators. And now, more than he had in a very long time, he missed their protection and their warm arms. He'd been on his own for a long time, but he remembered what it was to have family.  
  
"... then the state will claim your funds." Starscream snorted. "And before you ask, your money will not be allocated for your care. It will simply be deposited into the government coffers. To support you will be seen as a waste of resources that should be devoted to society's betterment, not the care of a defective who wasn't ... socially responsible enough ... to simply let the state murder him for the crime of being a so-called burden on society."   
  
"It's not quite that bad ..." Treadwell said, weakly.  
  
"Yeah, yeah it is." Starscream's wing-flick this time indicated the Vosian equivalent of a swear word, though Treadwell likely didn't catch the insult. Given the blatantly superior and insulting stream of commentary coming from the seeker's wings, either Treadwell was a superb actor to be able to keep a straight face or he didn't speak a flick of Vosian. Orion rather thought it was the latter. Few mechanisms ever learned Vosian.  
  
He was, on the whole, grateful for Starscream's presence. The seeker seemed to know far more about the world than Orion did, and Orion was more than willing to lean on that apparent experience.

Starscream said firmly, with a wing-gesture that questioned Treadwells integrity and intelligence, "He needs legal counsel. I'll pay for it."  
  
"You?" Treadwell said, dubiously. Starscream, at the moment, had patchy paint and quite a few dents. Plus he was in a clinic meant for the indigent.  
  
Starscream shrugged dismissively. "I have money. And connections. I'm only here because that fool of a gladiator didn't recognize me, and this was apparently the closest reputable medical center."  
  
There was a Vosian tradition of naming younglings after nobility. Vos had scores of mecha who answered to the name of Starscream, and this particular Starscream had never offered any glyphs indicating his profession, family, or rank.   
  
Treadwell didn't catch it, but Orion did. He twisted around to look at the seeker in surprise. Seekers tended to have similar frames and facial features, particularly when young, but ... yes. He'd seen Starscream before. In the news. Even, once, in person, from a distance. This was Vos's youngest prince, seventh in line for the throne and, if all gossip was to be believed, next in line to be Air Commander!  
  
The seeker caught his surprised look gaze, and flicked his wings in a sharp gesture that ordered silence. Orion, who had a renewed surge of protectiveness at the realization, was more than willing to comply. He suddenly understood Starscream's desire for confidentiality at a whole new level.  
  
To the enforcer, Orion said, softly, "I believe I will take Starscream's advice, Treadwell. I will give you information only with legal counsel present. I have no guilt, but Starscream is correct that sometimes ... bad assumptions ... are made of good people."   
  
The inspector was unhappy. Orion was firm. Starscream backed Orion up with an air of authority and of experience that could not be faked. In the end, Treadwell agreed to come back when Orion had a lawyer present.   
  


* * *

  
  
After the inspector left, Starscream turned to Orion. "You will, of course, tell no one who I am."  
  
"Of course not." Orion reached a hand out before realizing he didn't have a hand. The metal claws he'd been given had very little sensation beyond basic pressure receptors, and in any event, they were creepy. He started to drop his hand back out.  
  
Starscream caught it in his taloned fingers, and closed both of his hands around Orion's claw. "I'd take you back to Vos with me, if I could, but it's no place for you."  
  
"... because of what I am." He said, then added, "I would like to remain friends. Perhaps we could correspond? Not --" he looked away briefly, then back at the seeker, "not because you're a prince. I don't care about nobility. But I would like to keep in touch."  
  
"Vos is no place for you not because you're empurata, but because you lack wings." Starscream smirked, apparently finding humor in something that Orion didn't understand. "And yes, we will remain friends. We have so much in common. You are well educated and intelligent, and that, alone is a rare thing. And besides, any good Vosian princeling has a few disreputable friends. You'll only help my image."  
  
"Happy to help," Orion muttered, with a good bit of sarcasm. Then he added, a bit more strongly, "You realize I'm about the least disreputable mech you'll ever meet?"  
  
Starscream snickered. "But they don't know that. Best of both worlds, my friend. Best of both worlds. They'll assume you're a horrible criminal. Meanwhile, I don't have to worry about my virtue or my valuables in your presence."  
  
Orion blinked, surprised by the reference -- Starscream had just been horribly violated, yet he was able to joke about his "virtue" so easily.   
  
Starscream, hands now on his hips, informed Orion, "... and that's where you're supposed to claim I don't have any virtue left to steal."  
  
"What?" Orion said, startled.  
  
Starscream rolled his optics. "You have no sense of humor."   
  
"I'm not going to joke about ... about that!"   
  
"Why? I just did."   
  
"Because ... because ..." He sputtered, shocked to his very spark.  
  
"Oh, am I supposed to cry in a darkened room, maybe try to kill myself a few times, and fear my own shadow for the next megavorn or two because some aftwitted glitchbrained shuttle raped me? No. I refuse." Starscream flared his wings in a blatant display of aggression and dominance. "I am Starscream, Seventh Son of the Lord of Vos ..." He continud to outline his full designation and titles and career options. It seemed he was being groomed to succeed the current Air Commander, he was a few semesters from graduating with a doctorate in quantum physics, he'd won a number of awards for practical application of formerly theoretical science, and he was of the purest of pure seeker lines.  
  
Orion, later, couldn't begin to explain to himself why he reached out and pulled Starscream into his arms, interrupting him in mid-glyph. Starscream stiffened, then said defiantly, into Orion's shoulder, "I will not be ruled by this."   
  
"Good," Orion said, softly. "You shouldn't."   
  
Starscream's voice, normally pleasantly deep and melodious, hit a certain pitch of shriek that was painful to hear. "I will NOT let this change my life! I WON'T!"   
  
"You don't have to."   
  
Starscream sobbed, unexpectedly and loudly.   
  
Slowly, they crumpled to the ground together. Orion keened softly, both for his own losses -- his injuries, Ariel, Dion -- and for Starscream. Starscream wailed and wailed until his vocalizer glitched and he began to overheat from too-shallow respirations. Orion held him tight, stroking his back with the sensitive armor of his forearms since he could feel so little with his hands, and cried with him.  
  
Finally, Starscream quieted. He said, in a voice that was almost inaudible, "I'm sorry. This behavior is unworthy of me."  
  
"You do not have to be a warrior with me, or a prince." Orion assured him, rising and then offering Starscream a hand up. This time, Starscream took his clawed hand without hesitation. "You need only be you."  
  
"None of my other friends would understand." Starscream hadn't let go of Orion now that they were both standing. Instead, he leaned into Orion's arms, less desperate but still needing the comfort. His wings were canted forward, not in an expression of dominance, but to catch every bit of Orions field that he could. "Thundercracker wouldn't want to talk about it. He'd be too slagging uncomfortable. Skywarp would tease me, and I'd hate it even when I laughed with him. That line about my virtue, that'd be something 'Warp would say. The others ... the others would either be too careful, or pretend it didn't happen."  
  
Orion asked quietly, "Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
"There's not really much to talk about." Starscream frowned up at him, then rested his head on Orion's shoulder. "I came here to the games, with a friend -- former friend, hah! -- from university. He'd gotten box seats. Good game ..." Then, in a rush, his words sharp and loud, he explained, "Anyway, Fastfire is a minor noble I attend university with! We saw the games, and then went out to dinner ... had some high grade ... good stuff! He made a pass at me, and I blew him off, the slagger! He's not my type, you know? And he is too damned big and he wanted to spike me and I'm no valve mech! Slag, no! The next thing I knew, I was in a drugged haze. He must have slipped something into my drink. I don't remember everything that happened, but I remember bits and pieces. Pain -- he was too big for me, damnit, and he knew it! -- and me screaming at him to stop. And then his buddies showed up and I hated them to begin with! They forced me to drink more high grade and syk when I started coming around. I passed out, then I woke up here, with you."  
  
Orion rubbed his forearm against the back of Starscream's helm and said, "He utterly violated your trust. I'm sorry."  
  
"Slagger." Starscream said. "Damnit. He probably thinks I won't do anything for fear of this being public. I'm going to see him dead."   
  
Orion didn't let go. He just kept rubbing, one forearm below Starscream's wings, and the other against his helm. Starscream sighed softly, relaxing into Orion's arms. "I thought I could trust him. I thought we were friends. I thought -- I thought he valued me. As a friend. I thought I was important to him."  
  
"Some people are fools."  
  
"Yeah. He was foolish to cross me! I will get my revenge."  
  
"Revenge isn't always the answer."  
  
"Fine. I'll get justice. And I don't mean through the courts." Starscream sniffed. "He did that once, he'll do it again, to others. I'll see he never hurts anyone ever again."   
  
"Starscream, I think you should let the enforcers deal with it."  
  
Starscream chuckled darkly. "Oh, I intend to. I very much intend to. And I truly hope Kaon's law enforcement lives up to its reputation."   
  



	4. Chapter 4

The lawyer, Dictum, that Starscream hired showed up a few hours later, having been transported by suborbital shuttle from Praxus -- and then accompanied by said shuttle through the mean streets of Kaon. The shuttle was big, a rather morbid shade of grey, and had energon pink biolights. He looked like a walking corpse. Orion didn't know if he should be impressed or intimidated by that shuttle's blatantly threatening appearance; he was, however, relieved when Dictum left his goon to loom in a corner of the clinic's waiting room.  
  
At least two patients, awaiting treatment, sized the shuttle up and then immediately departed. Orion hoped their ailments were not serious.  
  
"I must say," Dictum told Starscream once they'd assembled in Ratchet's small office, "I've met you in a few disreputable places, but this ... what trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?"  
  
Orion, having remained standing while Dictum took a seat at the desk, studied the little mech with curiosity, even as Starscream said, "Oh, it's not me this time. I can handle this one on my own."  
  
The Praxian lawyer blinked his large optics a couple of times. In sharp contrast to his ride, Dictum was a crisply professional midnight blue, with matte silver trim. He had no biolights, and his optics were amber. "I take it I don't want to know?"  
  
"Mmmm. Plausible deniability." Starscream's grin was dangerously sharp.  
  
"I see."  
  
"Dictum, this is Orion Pax. I've taken an ... interest ... in his case, as I told you. I believe the police would like to find him guilty of some crime."  
  
"And you would believe this ... why?"  
  
"They sent Treadwell."  
  
Dictum snorted. "I see. Yes. Very well. Based on the information you sent me earlier, I'll take the case." To Orion, Dictum added, "If they've sent Treadwell, they are looking at finding fault in your behavior. He's one of their more, shall we say, aggressive investigators."  
  
"I haven't done anything," Orion said, softly. "I don't see how they can charge me with any sort of misconduct."  
  
Dictum shrugged, and sat down at Ratchet's desk. He opened his briefcase up, and took out a holographic recorder and a datapad. "Sit down, Orion. Starscream, unless you want to be part of my recording, go stand outside the door."  
  
Starscream grunted something that was obviously sarcastic for all that it was utterly unintelligeable. However, he did leave.  
  
Dictum said, softly, after Starscream was gone, "The Prince is a good mech. Don't believe the tabloid stories; he deliberately cultivates the rumors. I think it amuses him."  
  
"Rumors?" Orion said, blankly. He didn't really pay attention to celebrity news.  
  
"Nevermind. So. Tell me what happened to you ..."  
  
Orion closed his optics, and for the first time, relived the entire horrendous event, start to finish.  
  
He'd been in recharge when they'd broken into his house. "Maybe," he said to Dictum, "they had the wrong mech, I don't know. I said my name was Orion, not Optimus Prime, and one said I 'used to go' by Orion ..."  
  
They'd drugged him. He remembered the terror of a needle piercing his line, but little after that.  
  
He'd woken up nearly an orn later, to utter agony, as they carved his face from his cranium. He'd screamed and screamed through fountains of energon.  
  
He remembered every bit of the torturous procedures. The cackling medic -- if such a monster could be called a medic -- had explained each step, including the excruciating cautery of his protoform and the deep, invasive, probes into his very processor to burn away the neural contacts.  
  
They'd told him it was revenge. Revenge for something he'd done in the future. Deliberately, they left his mind and his emotions intact while ruining him for any useful task. It made no sense. He was just an archivist. Why would somebody go to the effort of going back in time to torture him? Time travel was possible, but difficult. The amount of energy involved in creating a temporal portal was staggering, and _expensive_.  
  
Dictum listened. Took notes. And then he asked questions. "You said they called you Optimus?"  
  
"Optimus Prime -- there was no Prime by that name, ever." Orion stared at his three-fingered insensate claws. "I can't help think that they have me confused with somebody else. They said that would be my name in the future, though. But I am no Prime!"  
  
Dictum had many more questions for him. Some made no sense, such as his political leanings and a complete and total list of any mecha he associated with. Dictum seemed surprised by how small that number of people was, and kept pressing him for more names.  
  
Orion finally snapped, "I'm a scholar, not a ..."  
  
"Student?" Dictum interrupted, with a small smirk. "Most students are rather social. And sometimes unwise in the voicing of their progressive views. Pit knows I've had to untangle Stars from more than a few messes he's gotten himself into."  
  
There might have been an inelegant snort from outside the door, or not. It was very faint. The recording equipment on the table would probably just filter it out as extraneous background noise. Orion couldn't tell if the noise had come from Starscream or Ratchet, and he assumed both were eavesdropping as he could sense their fields.  
  
Finally, though, the entire explanation to the lawyer was over. Shuddering a little, tank unsettled, Orion sat hunched at the desk. He could still remember the horror, which had been worse than the pain, of his cranial components being cut away ... of being told it was revenge for a crime he hadn't even committed. The sheer, absolute, violation. The _wrongness_. The _injustice_.  
  
Dictum let him take a break. Starscream and Ratchet came in. Ratchet offered him a tranquilizer; his field must have become a complete mess during his talk with the lawyer. He declined the drugs; they would dull his senses, and the assault was too fresh in his mind to risk that. If he was attacked again, he didn't want to be caught off guard! He never wanted to be caught off guard, ever again.  
  
Starscream, however, gave him more welcome support in the form of crouching down next to his seat, and putting an arm around his shoulders. The seeker's plating was warm, and his frame solid, and his presence comforting. He liked the seeker, and wished he wasn't leaving as soon as Ratchet cleared him to fly. Starscream was snarky, intentionally arrogant, deliberately abrasive and his sense of humor was unusual, but under it all, Orion knew he had a good spark.  
  
Dictum then proceeded to coach him on what to tell the investigator -- the truth, un-embellished, with no speculation, political opinions, or extraneous comments. "And let that field of yours out," Dictum said, grimly. "It's the most believable part of this whole story."  
  
"What?"  
  
"He means," Starscream said, stroking Orion's pauldron with his clever fingers, "that your field is believable. Painfully so, sometimes. Treadwell's aggressive, and cynical as hell, but he's not dishonest. If he decides you're not a criminal, you'll be fine."  
  


* * *

  
  
Treadwell didn't seem to be playing any specific mind games now. He was, if Orion was any judge, on his best behavior. Dictum was recording everything, and Orion had learned (from a bemused Ratchet, who knew of him) that Dictum was politically powerful. The lawyer had a long history of embarrassing powerful people, and making fools of nobility.  
  
Treadwell's questions were harsher than Dictum's, however, and he kept asking the same ones in various ways. Orion finally broke down, shuddering, after the fourth time Treadwell asked him about the design of the interior of the operating room where they'd removed his face. His processor filled with painful errors as he reflexively sent commands to his nonexistent facial features to _show_ his emotions, and it was all too much. He found he was trembling, and on the verge of an explosive outburst of panic and rage.  
  
Only at that point did Dictum finally put an end to the questioning. "Is there any further point to this?" Dictum said, sharply.  
  
"Apologies, counselor," Treadwell said, "I believe I do have all the information I need."  
  
"Good."  
  
Orion managed to gain control of himself and spoke up. "M... my friends. You said they were dead?"  
  
It hurt, like a fist clenched around his spark, that they were gone. Ariel. Dion. He'd had so few friends, but he'd been close to the ones he had. He wanted just one more day with them, one more chance to let them know how important they were to him. The panic tried to rise again. With more willpower than he would have thought he possessed, he maintained an outward calm. His field, however, was certainly a roiling, violent, furious and grieving mess. Dictum had actually scooted his chair backwards, away from him, though the detective wasn't reacting to it.  
  
"Yes." Treadwell said. "We assume it's related ... we just don't know how."  
  
"I want to ... I want to attend the internment. If it hasn't already happened." He ventilated deeply, several times, and tried to calm himself. He wanted to scream. He wanted to _run_. A powerful impulse to leap to his feet and run from the room almost overwhelmed him. Only the fact that Treadwell was between him and the door prevented that, and that realization made him feel _trapped_.  
  
"We'll talk about that later ..." Dictum started to say.  
  
"I will go." He found strength that he didn't know he possessed with that pronouncement. "Later, and the internment will be over.  I need to go."  
  
Treadwell coughed. "I will let you make plans with your friends. There is no reason he cannot attend, provided proper arrangements for travel can be made. I would not suggest public transportation as his declassification is pending."  
  
"Thank you, Detective." Dictum said, rising, stepping around Treadwell, and pushing the door open. Treadwell gave the lawyer a sharp look, but he did take the hint and depart.  
  
As soon as he was gone, Orion repeated, a bit too loudly, "I need to go!"  
  
"You are empurata." Dictum exvented heavily. "It is unwise for you to travel."  
  
Starscream, who had entered after Treadwell exited, flicked his wings back dismissively. "Unwise or not, he needs to go. I'd want to go too. I'll talk to Skyfire; private transportation will certainly make it safer."

* * *

  
  
Ratchet looked up at the sound of heavy feet approaching the open door to his quarters. Orion peered in, single optic large and expressionless but field politely restrained. The young mech had spent the last few hours curled up in one of Ratchet's private exam rooms. Some time alone seemed to have helped with his composure.

He'd felt like a ticking time bomb earlier, nanoklicks from a catastrophic explosion. Ratchet had not been surprised by Orion's emotional reaction, and he had been impressed that the kid had maintained his composure. Most people would not have. He could have felt Orion's field from the other side of the clinic.

  
"What is it?" Ratchet asked, with a frown. "Come in."  
  
"I wanted to talk to you." Orion stepped through the doorway. He audibly exvented.  
  
"About?"  
  
"What my role here will entail."  
  
Ratchet shrugged. "You're big. Security, I guess."  
  
"I am," Orion pointed out, "well educated. The loss of my dataports doesn't change that I already possess considerable knowledge in a wide range of areas. I can also input data through an optical reader if I need to learn a new skill."  
  
Ratchet sighed. "Unless you're going to pull a gift for accounting out of your aft ..."  
  
"I can do that." Orion said, with a small smile. Basic bookkeeping was one of the skills an archivist was expected to have, since many of them ended up self-employed, working as contractors for various government and private organizations.  
  
He added helpfully, "I also speak around a dozen Cybertronian languages and a few organic ones. Additionally, I am good at maths and have spent some time in science labs. We learn to identify, study and conserve antiquities as part of our training, and that often involves lab work. There is a good bit of hard science involved in the study and preservation of antiquities. With a little instruction, I believe I could assist you in the creation of pharmaceutical compounds or even basic machine work. I can certainly repair and service equipment."  
  
He tried not to think too hard how having numb claws instead of hands would affect his ability to work. He'd manage, somehow.  
  
"Can you brew high grade?" Ratchet said, with a tilt of his head.  
  
"... I suppose?" Orion's tone was uncertain. His only experience with high grade consisted of the occasional cube shared with friends. He was indifferent about the taste and had never been fond of the intoxicating effects.  
  
Ratchet waved that idea away with a flip of his hand. "You can't taste the results, though. I won't be that cruel to you. -- Yeah, fine, you can balance my books. And I could use a big, strong, orderly I can trust, so you will be asked to help with patients occasionally. We'll see about pharmaceuticals later."  
  
"Very well." Orion frowned. "And where am I to recharge?"  
  
"... there's a storage room downstairs, in the basement. I suppose you can clean it out and stick a berth in there. Beats a gurney upstairs, and you'll have some privacy, though it's not large." Ratchet squinted at him critically. "... I think we can fit a berth in there big enough for you to stretch out on."  
  


* * *

  
  
Starscream borrowed Ratchet's vid screen to place a call to Iacon. Skyfire, much to his surprise, answered his call immediately. The big white shuttle exclaimed, "Starscream! I was so worried!"  
  
"... worried?" He said, in confusion.  
  
"You -- you haven't heard? They found bodies in a warehouse downtown and they haven't named any of them. You've been missing for two days! It's almost time for midterms!"  
  
Starscream flicked his wings in irritation at the bigger mech's babble. Skyfire immediately fell silent. Starscream impatiently said, "I'll explain later. I ran into some trouble in Kaon ..."  
  
Skyfire's optics narrowed. "You didn't get arrested again, did you? Stars! You promised you'd try to stay out of trouble, slag it!"  
  
"Not that kind of trouble." Starscream hissed. He didn't particularly want to give Skyfire the details; Skyfire could be suffocating in his concern. The shuttle would spend the next vorn or two treating him like spun glass, and Starscream really just wanted his life to return to normal as soon as was feasible. He hedged, "... I got in a fight and landed in a clinic. And then I ended up helping another patient. Which is where I need your help."  
  
Skyfire's expression was deeply suspicious. "Since when did you lose a fight?"  
  
"Did I say I lost?" Starscream sniffed. It wasn't actually a lie; he wasn't saying whether he'd won or lost the 'fight'. Besides, he fully intended to have a chat with the Kaonian enforcers before he left the city, and victory _would_ be his. "Are you going to help me or not?"  
  
Skyfire's optics narrowed. "Help you in what way? I'm not getting involved in another one of your schemes, Prince Starscream."  
  
Starscream rolled his optics. "We only got arrested the once."  
  
"Three times. Plus one rather large fine ..."  
  
"Which I paid!"  
  
"... and I'm not welcome in Praxus for the next twenty orns."  
  
"You were the one who picked the Praxian ambassador up like he was a minibot!"  
  
"Because he was about to punch you, because you'd questioned his ancestry." Skyfire's glower didn't change much.  
  
"Fine." Starscream huffed. Then he said, "This isn't like that, though. I just need you to give a friend a ride, if you would. I'll cover your fuel."  
  
"... did you forget that it's mid terms?"  
  
"Look, Sky, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."  
  
"You never do."  
  
"Give me a break, will you?"  
  
Skyfire was silent, for a long moment, considering. Then, slowly, he intoned. "I always regret it when I do."  
  
"Slag it!" Starscream burst out, having reached the end of his admittedly limited patience. "Skyfire, please! I'm not ..." his vocalizer hitched, startling him as much as it surprised the shuttle, "I'm really not in the mood for taking slag from you!"  
  
Skyfire, now concerned, asked, "Stars, are you okay?"  
  
"Yes, I'm fine. My friend isn't. Look, his friends were killed in that murder you mentioned and they mutilated him. Empurata! For crimes they said he'd commit in the future, can you imagine? He's just an apprentice archivist, he hasn't done anything wrong -- yet -- and he wants to attend his friends' internment. Will you please pick him up and give him a lift to Iacon and then back here?"  
  
Skyfire shuttered his optics a couple of times. "They ... what?"  
  
"You heard me. And they're already moving to declare him Classless due to the degree of damage. He needs a lift; it's not safe for him to take public transit."  
  
Skyfire said, "Of course I'll help -- you should have said why you needed me to begin with!"  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Kaon's air traffic control lived up to the city's reputation as the most corrupt citystate on all of Cybertron.

Skyfire initially requested a landing approach; the controller offered him a landing slot that was nearly half a planetary rotation later, and involved hours of circling the city. When he asked to land in root mode at any available landing pad, rather than the more vastly more fuel efficient option of touching down on his wheels, he was simply ignored.  
  
Kaon was not a popular destination for fliers, so there was no real reason for any sort of delay. Skyfire sized up the dark landing strip, and the notable lack of other air traffic, and replied with resignation, "Is there any way to get an earlier slot?"  
  
He had mid terms to study for. While he could and had worked his way through a number of data files while in flight, some of his studies required in-person lab work to master. He didn't want to spend any more time than necessary orbiting Kaonian airspace.  
  
The controller responded with a data squirt that was simply a bank account number. A private bank account number.  
  
Skyfire was not wealthy, but Starscream was. With a mental roll of his optics, Skyfire deposited a small sum into the controller's account. He'd invoice Starscream, who would probably act like Skyfire had just sold the seeker's firstborn to slavers but who _would_ pay the bill. Or Skyfire would step on him. (Skyfire was a gentle, pacifistic soul right up to the point where he had to deal with Starscream. He'd learned a long time ago that you needed to be assertive with Starscream.

  
The controller responded with the same account number, and no other comment.  
  
Skyfire sighed. He asked, "Can I get an emergency root-mode landing slot if I pay enough?"  
  
And again with the account number. Was the thing just set on auto-repeat? With a huffed sigh, Skyfire deposited enough to pay for a nice meal out in Iacon. He had no idea what the going rate was for Kaonian bribes.  
  
The controller responded with a request for the landing location. Apparently, he'd paid enough.  
  
Skyfire provided the clinic address, and somewhat to his bemusement, he was promptly directed to land in the middle of the street out front. The street was a narrow feeder street, and it took a bit of fancy footwork in alt mode to touch down without crunching into the two-story buildings on either side or frying a grounder with the backwash from his thrusters. He did set a puddle of a noxious looking oily puddle alight, but that probably qualified as "street cleaning" rather than "damage." Once landed, he finally found himself facing a rather run down emergency center.  
  
The clinic had a (partially) lighted sign out front. Stating the obvious, it said, "Emergency Clinic." One glyph was dark and had projectile holes in it, and another glyph flickered ocasionally. Something bigger than a projectile slug had taken a chunk out of the roof, and the street smelled of sulfurous rain, purged energon, spilled hydraulic fluid, and hot metal. The burning puddle sent a black plume of smoke into the gloomy sky. In the distance, in a dimly lit alley, someone shuffled unsteadily. There was a dead glitchmouse in the gutter.  
  
Skyfire, plating clamped tight and wings set in their highest upright position in what was a gesture of universal disgust among winged mecha, picked his way to the clinic door and stepped inside.  
  
It was clean inside, at least. An empurata was mopping the floor, working his way around a pair of scowling minibots and their giggling and dented youngling. The youngling, about three quarters grown, appeared to be high on stims. The empurata looked up, and his field flared with greeting. "Skyfire?"  
  
"That is me."  
  
"I'm Orion Pax. I will tell Starscream you are here."  
  
Skyfire, bemused, definitely noticed that Orion had used a personal form of Starscream's name, without honorifics; it was, in fact, the same friendly form that Skyfire used.  
  
That use of the familiar form implied either a remarkable lack of manners, or that Starscream had made a new friend. Starscream didn't have many friends who dared drop his titles and rank from his name. Most wanted to emphasize Starscream's noble position when they claimed him as a "friend" and would therefore rattle of his entire full designation. For an empurata to simply call him 'Starscream' was unusual, and it said something intriguing about the character of the mech.  
  
After a moment Orion returned, with Starscream in tow. Starscream, to Skyfire's optics, looked exhausted. His field was ragged and his normally impeccably detailed armor was scuffed and scratched. In person, he seemed even worse than he'd looked on the viewscreen.  
  
"Are you okay?" Skyfire asked, even though he knew it would irritate the seeker. Starscream didn't admit to weakness easily.  
  
"I'm fine. I just got in a fight. So stop worrying, Sky, you're being annoying." Starscream threw an arm around Skyfire's back in a casual half a hug that felt strangely forced. "But I'm glad you made it so quickly."  
  
Skyfire responded with a commed invoice for the bribe he'd had to pay, plus a frown. If Starscream wasn't going to admit to being in rough shape Skyfire would accommodate him with a change in subject. Star might not like that change in subject, however!  "It wasn't cheap."  
  
Starscream barked an amused laugh. Somewhat to Skyfire's surprise, he didn't question the bribe that Skyfire had paid, however. It appeared that he wouldn't need to (threaten to) stomp on the seeker after all. Instead, Starscream said cheerfully, "I love you, Sky. Listen, I need to talk to the enforcers here. I'll follow in a bit. Orion, this is my friend Skyfire -- he'll take good care of you."  
  
"Orion Pax." The tall empurata introduced himself, including several glyphs that identified himself as an archivist-in-training, from an upper working class bracket. The young mech then blinked and amended his designation to simply, 'Orion Pax, of Iacon,' stripping out all the important glyphs that identified his profession and class.  
  
Across the room, a mech with a medic's chevron, said, "It's Orion Pax ..." and he included a glyph that identified Orion as Classless.  
  
Orion flicked his armor in irritation. "I don't believe the court ruling has gone through yet."  
  
"Don't get yourself in trouble, kid." Ratchet shook his head. "You don't know when they will rule, though it will likely be soon enough."  
  
Skyfire, uneasy over the whole interaction, settled on calling the mech, "Orion Pax ..." with his original designation of archivist-in-training and his class.  
  
"Just call me Orion. I suspect it will be easier." Orion said, offering up the familiar form of his name. "Wheeljack says most of the empurata go by nicknames anyway. I suppose that avoids the humiliation of being called a classless one whenever somebody calls them by name, and it doesn't get them in trouble with the authorities for using a false identity."  
  
Skyfire, hesitantly, nodded. It felt strange to call a mech he barely knew by a nickname. The logic, however, did make sense. "Very well, Orion."  
  


* * *

  
  
The shuttle Skyfire was reserved and dignified and, Orion suspected, just a little uncomfortable inside his own plating. Orion knew the feeling, and found himself liking the tall white mech.  
  
"Where will we take off from?" He asked, from lack of other subjects to talk about.  
  
Skyfire frowned. "If you don't mind a rough ride, there's enough room to launch from the next street over. Barely. It's a fairly long walk to the nearest landing strip."  
  
Orion was about to suggest a tamer launch, even if they had to walk a long way -- the idea of "barely" getting airborne was unsettling -- but Starscream snorted and clapped Orion on the arm. "Don't worry, kid. Skyfire needs less of a runway than I do. He's all engines. With the amount of power he's got, you could make a brick fly."  
  
"That's not entirely complimentary, Starscream," Skyfire replied. Having watched them interact for a few hours, Orion was beginning to suspect that Skyfire's default mode for interacting with the seeker was affectionate exasperation.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, you're all power. I'm the one with the finesse." Starscream giggled.  
  
There might have been an innuendo in that. Orion was still trying to figure them out -- were these two lovers?  He wasn't sure about their relationship at all.  
  
Skyfire huffed and said to Orion, "Starscream's never forgiven me for beating him in a moon-to-moon race a few vorns back. Simple physics. My mass-to-thrust ratio is better. Stars can still fly circles around me in atmosphere, though. He's more aerodynamic."  
  
Starscream coughed. "Though if you keep flying with me you'll end up at least able to keep up with the average seeker, Sky." To Orion, he added, "He's got talent in the air. Don't worry, you'll be safer with him than with anyone else I can think of."  
  
"I'm not worried," he lied. He let them herd him outside, however, and obediently clambered into Skyfire's cabin when the shuttle transformed. Starscream zipped down to the other end of the street with a probably-illegal roar of his thrusters, and then blocked traffic so they could launch. Skyfire, who was clearly the more law abiding member of the pair, contacted air traffic control to request -- and receive -- permission for takeoff.  
  
Bribes were involved in obtaining that launch window and flight path. Orion would have been worried by this if he hadn't already learned from Ratchet and Wheeljack that bribes were how Kaon functioned. Bribes of public officials were culturally accepted, a time honored tradition, and actually legal under Kaonian law.  
  
The street Skyfire had identified was barely wide enough to accommodate his wings, and it was potholed and wet, but he still lifted off with a minimum of difficulty. Orion was impressed. He'd been terrified that they would careen into a building or fail to gain enough speed for takeoff before they ran out of road.  
  
Orion relaxed once the shuttle was aloft. The view, as they rocketed into a suborbital flight path that would take them directly to Iacon, was impressive, and Skyfire's evident skill reassuring.  
  
Skyfire's field, now that he was no longer being aggravated by Starscream, was calm, competent, and relaxed. Orion found himself responding to that aura with a lessening of his own anxieties (not all of which were related to the flight, not by far!)  
  
The route took them across the night side of the planet, and vast, glittering cities and wide dark plains. Ariel, he couldn't help but think, would love this.  
  
Would have loved it. Past tense.  
  
He remembered why he was going to Iacon, and his mood came crashing back down.  His moment of calm was shattered by a crushing wave of grief. He'd lost everything. And he wanted his friends back so, so, badly. Tears would have been a relief, but he wasn't able to cry due to the damage, and the effort would only give him massive painful errors.  
  
"You okay?" Apparently cued in by his field, Skyfire's voice was softly sympathetic.  
  
"... no. My closest friends are dead over something I haven't even done." He wanted to vent his grief and anger, however, Skyfire was an utter stranger who was being kind enough to transport him. So he tried for calm and said instead, "It's been a very difficult week."  
  
"That's got to be the understatement of the year. Stars said you were working with Alpha Trion?"  
  
Conversation was a relief. A distraction. He answered with as much composure as he could, "I was set to get my glyphs -- I'd be a journeyman -- shortly." Orion stared out the window. In the distance, he could see the horizon, curved at this altitude, and a couple of Cybertron's larger artificial satellites. "How do you meet Starscream?"  
  
"We're both students at Iacon's university, and we have had several classes together. Stars is studying astrophysics. I'm an organic chemistry major, with a minor in xenobiology."  
  
"Interesting field." Orion, despite himself, was curious. "Have you ever met any aliens?"  
  
"Only in the lab." Skyfire said, then elaborated to Orion's relief with an explanation, "I mean nonsentient alien life. Potted plants and bacterial cultures and a few small animals in sealed habitats. Stars and I plan to apply for the Intergalaction Exploration Corp. Hopefully we'll be able to work together. And maybe meet the kind of aliens you mean, the kind that we can talk to."  
  
Orion _had_ met aliens, the sentient kind. Sometimes they came to the archives for a tour, and sometimes he'd had needed questions answered about antiquities of alien origin. He'd enjoyed talking to organics; they fascinated him. However, he couldn't bring himself to talk about his work with Alpha Trion. So he changed the subject, "Are you and Stars involved?"  
  
Skyfire chuckled, "Starscream's cute, but no. We tried it and we decided we were better friends than lovers."  
  
"I see. At least you're still friends."  
  
"Oh, it wasn't like that. We're just not ..." Skyfire hesitated, then said, "not really compatible in a relationship."  
  
"Oh." He tried to focus on Skyfire's words, because if he thought about his own grief, he'd break down. "You didn't get along?"  
  
"Something like. We care about each other, but there were many complications, and we decided, in the end, that we were better friends than lovers. Stars is a good mech, though. I hope he finds a partner soon -- he needs one."  
  
"Do you have somebody?"  
  
"No." The shuttle sounded wistful. "I am classed oddly, and therefore there are few who are interested in me for a long term relationship. I've never liked ... casual ... relationships."  
  
"Classed oddly?" That didn't quite make sense.  
  
"I'm not actually an academic, I'm transport class. The Council decreed that I should be cross-trained in xenobiology as I do have an aptitude and it was seen as efficient for an interstellar shuttle to also be a xenoscientist. However, they refused to change my reproductive classification -- so anyone who wishes to bond with me must also be convoy or transport class. They won't approve a partnership with an academic class or military class mech for me. Yet, once I finish my degree, I will be offworld for megavorns at a time."  
  
"... and your bondmate wouldn't be able to go with you." Orion sighed. Now he saw the problem. That seemed incredibly unfair. Bonding was only approved for purposes of procreation these days, and only if that procreation served the interests of Cybertron. Orion personally knew of a bonding that had been denied simply because the two mecha were stationed in two different cities. The authorities had determined that it would be 'too difficult for them to raise offspring' if they weren't living together. Skyfire was, indeed, in a bit of a bind as far as finding a partner went.  
  
"I can have casual liasons, of course, but nothing permanent can come of it. Not legally, anyway."  
  
"The functionalists may not be in power forever," Orion said, softly. Skyfire sounded so hopeless in this moment. "I've studied a lot of history. No regime lasts forever."  
  
"I wouldn't say that too loudly!" Skyfire replied, voice now sharp. Softer, he added wistfully, "But I do hope you're right."  
  
"What are they going to do to me if they do hear?" Orion replied. "Empurata seems to be the standard punishment for political dissidents. Been there, done that, as they say."  
  
"But be careful, Orion. Classless mecha who cause the state to use taxpayer resources on them are smelted," Skyfire counseled. "Stars has been documenting the abuse of the Functional Laws for a long time. He lost a very good friend and you'll find an ally for those views of yours with him, but even Starscream has to be careful. You have no protection whatsoever. And Starscream can only do so much to protect _you_."  
  


* * *

  
  
Orion, with Skyfire's warning fresh in his mind, walked from Iacon's shuttleport towards the temple. Skyfire had offered to escort him, but he knew that the shuttle had mid terms, so he'd declined. Iacon was his life long home, and he knew the way well. Walking would take hours, but he had hours until the internment.  
  
Orion could not drive, and not just because his  transformation cog was disabled by the attack.  
  
He already knew the basic rules that all Classless mecha were required to live under, and one of them was that they were not allowed to drive on public roads. They could walk on feeder streets, but using publicly funded highways was seen as an unnecessary use of taxpayer resources by mecha who presumably had nowhere they needed to be in a hurry. Classless mecha, by definition, did not have occupations.  
  
He wasn't yet Classless, but he couldn't transform anyway.  
  
He mulled over the rules as he walked. He'd always thought them unfair, but now they seemed even more so.  
  
He couldn't work at a job that a Classed mech desired -- which only left dangerous or demeaning jobs or brute manual labor. While he fully intended to balance Ratchet's books he would need to do so off the record, as accounting was definitely not a job a Classless mech was technically allowed to do.  
  
He couldn't use any public service. To do so was a criminal act. That meant he couldn't enter taxpayer funded buildings such as libraries, museums, stadiums, or even public temples. He couldn't use the public datanet. He couldn't communicate by comm, even had his comms been functional, because the repeaters were publicly funded. The logic was that if he wasn't earning enough to pay sufficient taxes to cover "his share" of public services, he shouldn't be allowed to use those public services either.  
  
If he got in any sort of trouble in the law that would merit jail time for a classed mechanism, it was a capital offense because he was 'wasting public resources.'  
  
He couldn't legally bond to another Classless mecha -- that would mean they would be using the judicial system to record the bond, which was an illegal use of taxpayer resources. Technically, he could legally bond to a _Classed_ mecha, since they could file the records, but that would still require permission of the Functionalist Council for an Out-of-Class bonding. They were generally unlikely to grant that permission. (Though he suspected the Kaonian Council could be bribed.)  
  
His spark clenched. The only person he had ever considered bonding to was Elita, and he was walking to her internment. He hadn't expected that bonding to happen for many megavorns, if ever, but he'd always thought it might be a possibility. He'd loved her.  
  
And Dion, his best friend, was dead too.  
  
The afternoon was sunny; he walked among cheerful crowds of people as his route took him through a small market not far from his apartment. None recognized him, and most got out of his way. Some stared, some muttered; a few shouted insults at the empurata in their midst. He ignored them with all the dignity he could summon. It seemed like only yesterday when there would have been the occasional cheerful wave of greeting. He hadn't been particularly social, but he had been known to them. He had lived in Iacon all his life, after all.  
  
His apartment wasn't far from his location. It was still his, paid up through the end of the decavorn. He had time to ... visit ... it. The internment was scheduled for the evening; he would arrive far too early if he didn't stop.  
  
He'd been attacked, assaulted, in his own apartment. He didn't particularly want to go there, but he supposed he should collect a few of his things. It seemed irresponsible, somehow, to just leave them behind for the cleaning drones to dispose of.  
  
His small two-room suite was halfway up a modest skyscraper. It had a great view of a vast and featureless expanse of the next building's wall, just mechanometers away, and the heating was dodgy in winter, but it had been home for a long time.  
  
He rode the elevator in silence, and alone.  
  
Only when he reached his door did he realize that with his comm unit destroyed, he couldn't ping the lock with his passkey. However, the door wasn't quite shut, and when he touched it with one hand, it swung open. Startled, he realized there was a mech in his quarters.  
  
A black and white mech with a deep blue visor stared at him.  
  
He tensed, and took a step back.  
  
"Easy, m'mech." The stranger held his hands up defensively, "Ah'm not gonna hurt ya. Yer Orion, right?"  
  
"Yes. What are you doing in my apartment?" He took another step backwards. Orion was no coward, but he had been kidnapped and then brutalized recently, and it had started in his own apartment. This was not, he realized abruptly, a place that felt any way safe. These mecha could be kin to the ones who had attacked him ...  
  
"Looking for answers," a second mech answered, stepping out of the back. This one was an Vosian enforcer, with glyphs of high rank on his pauldrons and a no-nonsense feel to his field. "I am Lt. Prowl, of the Iaconian Enforcers. This is Jazz."  
  
Orion blinked, as he belatedly recognized the blue visor'd mech. "Jazz, of the Prime's Bureau of Investigations."  
  
"Thass me." Jazz grinned. "We've met, actually. Ya helped me do some research a few times. Yer Alpha Trion's favorite apprentice."  
  
"I remember you." Orion frowned. "The Prime is investigating my ... assault?"  
  
Jazz inclined his head to one side. "Sorta. C'mon in, and get tha' door shut behind ya."  
  
He would have preferred to leave the door open, so as not to be trapped with possibly dangerous mecha, but he did recognize Jazz. He complied, somewhat reluctantly.  
  
Once the door was shut, it was Prowl who spoke. "Two days ago, both Jazz and I were attacked by mechanisms who ... underestimated us."  
  
Jazz grinned, a dangerous expression.  
  
"Jazz was able to ascertain his assailant was from the future," Prowl added. "Before the mech expired."  
  
Jazz snorted. "If by 'expired' ya mean he wiped his own processor, yah, sure. And by wiped, I mean made slag of it, and released his own spark too. I'm good, but I can't hack slag. I got a bit from him before he melted down, but not enough to determine what the commonality was between us."  
  
"Between ... us."  
  
"Mech intended to do t'us what they did t'you." Jazz shook his head. "He was involved in a war in a future. Blamed t' three of us for it."  
  
Prowl inclined his head, and said, "Unfortunately, I killed the assailant who came after me. Not, however, before he told me that I, and this is a direct quote, needed to 'suffer for the crimes you shall commit in the future.'"  
  
"Prowler's about t' most lawful mech I know," Jazz said, "so we figure he was talking figurative crimes, an' not literal ones."  
  
Prowl flicked his doorwings in assent. "We've read Treadwell's report on your attack. I fail to see how we may be linked now, but it seems we do have a common ... adversary."  
  
Jazz, arms folded across his chest, said, "Easy, Prowl. You're overwhelming t' kid here. Orion, why don't you sit down. Can we order ya something delivered here t' fuel with?"  
  
"... I'm fueled." He did sit, though. He was feeling very upset. He protested, "I'm just an apprentice archivist! What could I do that would make someone hate me so much?"  
  
"You said he called ya a Prime, t' Treadwell." Jazz straddled one of Orion's kitchen chairs backward. Orion's chairs were tall, meant for his lanky frame, and Jazz's toes didn't quite touch the ground.  
  
"I'm no Prime!"  
  
"But ya might be. In the future."  
  
Orion stared at his claws. "Maybe I was. In another future. I have a hard time believing that, though. I ... I liked being an archivist."  
  
"Yah, an' ya were good at it, too." Jazz said.  
  
Orion glanced up.  
  
The minibot grinned at him. "Sure ya were. Ah always looked for ya when I needed something weird and ancient researched for me, or some weird old weapon identified. Ya got a passion for what you do."  
  
"Did." Orion corrected. "I'm to be declared Classless. Useless. A _defective_."  
  
Prowl's field felt deeply distressed. The Praxian said softly, "Repairs are not possible?"  
  
"Not ... at this time, no. The cost would be staggering, and Alpha Trion says he does not trust any living mnemnosurgeon. I am not certain why."  
  
Jazz huffed, "Unfair, that. Ya didn't do anything yet."  
  
"My ... friends. Dion, Ariel. Were they killed because of me?"  
  
"We believe it was the same group, yes." Prowl's response was gentle, and honest. "We do not know your the relationship to the others, however."  
  
"Think about it, Prowler." Jazz swung his feet back and forth. "If t'kid did end up a Prime someday, ah can see at least five or six of the ten dead bein' involved w' him."  
  
Prowl grunted.  
  
Jazz elaborated, "Ironhide -- Ya got one of Sentinel's bodyguards there -- he was a guard for Nova, too, an' no reason he wouldn't be a guard for t' next Prime."  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
"An' that little yellow courier -- he was just a courier now, but he's fast, an' smart, an' ah could see him ending up in' the military in a war, as a scout or a messenger."  
  
"True."  
  
"Also, that Towers mech. Powerful family, an' he had some interestin' mods. An' he was known to be a good spark. Could easily see him being part of a Prime's retinue."  
  
Prowl was listening, head tilted to one side. Orion just felt sick. Was Jazz talking about friends he might have had someday, dead now, because of some terrible thing he'd done in the future? Had it been his fault that they were dead?  
  
He wished he could talk it over with Ariel and Dion. They had always given him the best advice; Ariel had provided him emotional support for most of his life, and Dion had been the voice of reason and logic. Primus, he missed them so much. Were they dead because of something his future self had done? Was he supposed to feel _guilty_ for crimes he hadn't even committed yet?  
  
Jazz continued, voice gentle. "Orion, ah think ya might have known t' host, Blaster."  
  
He looked up, surprised by the name. "Y-yes. He's dead?"  
  
He knew Blaster, though not well. The mech sometimes worked on the Iaconian Archive's computer systems. Orion had liked him, and his pack of little symbionts.  
  
Jazz nodded slowly.  
  
"Oh." Orion took a deep invent. "He seemed like a good mech. His symbionts -- were they ....?"  
  
"They're alive. Ah'm not certain what will happen to them, but fer now, they're alive."  
  
Prowl added, "In a hypothetical future war, Blaster's skills would have been extremely useful."  
  
"An' his personality, too. T'mech woulda been a good officer."  
  
"Who else?" Orion asked, not sure if he wanted to know or not.  
  
"Old retired general, name of Kup. Surprised they got him, actually. Tough ol' cog."  
  
"... I knew him," Orion said, quietly.  He remembered listening to the old mech's stories with some interest. "He was a friend of Alpha Trion's. And the rest?"  
  
"The ones that don't fit. Pair of Kaonian gladiators younger'n you are -- tough punks, twins -- an' some youngling whose most remarkable trait seems to have been the color of his paint."  
  
He didn't recognize their names, when Jazz provided them. The youngling had been a true child, too, not even close to reaching his majority.  
  
"And you two," Orion mused. "Somehow, you are involved, as well, with the future me."  
  
"If ya were a -- are -- will be --" Jazz struggled with the verb tense, then rolled his optics. "If future you is a Prime, tha' explains me. Ah'm attached t' the Iaconian Office of the Prime. As far as Prowl goes ..."  
  
"... among other things, Jazz saw that there will be a very ugly war in the future." Prowl flicked his doorwings in a gesture that betrayed distress. "In that future, I am one of the sole surviving Praxians. I would surmise that justice for my kin would be my motive for serving the Prime, perhaps in an administrative capacity."  
  
"'E understates himself." Jazz snorted. "Prowl's got a formidable processor. We borrow 'im occasionally even now for data crunching when we're tryin' t' catch a baddy."  
  
"Yes. As I said, in an administrative capacity." Prowl sighed. "That future that Jazz saw in the processor of his mech is one I am now turning my attention to stopping. Praxus was destroyed."  
  
"Wish I coulda saw more. Such as how. An' why they hated ya so much, kid." Jazz was as distressed, Orion realized, as Prowl. He just showed it differently. "Ya gonna be in Iacon? We gotta keep tabs on ya."  
  
"Kaon." He explained, "Alpha Trion has arranged employment for me with the medic who saved my life. We can keep in touch, however."  
  
"Ya won't be able to use the public datanet."  
  
"He could use the Prime's private network," Prowl suggested.  
  
Jazz made a quick negating gesture. "An' if he gets caught it'll be execution for him, Prowler. By definition, the Prime's net is run with public funds. He uses it, gets convicted of it, they convict him of theft of public services, and execute him."  
  
Orion's field flared with his sudden distress, causing both mecha to stare at him. "This is so unfair! I didn't even do anything!"  
  
"Apparently, ya did, in t' future." Jazz frowned at him. "Still, seems pretty unfair to punish ya now for something that happened in the future."  
  
"Unless they were also trying to prevent that terrible future from happening." Prowl rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "... if he was Prime, and he was behind the attack on Praxus that you say destroyed it, that could be motive for any number of mecha to seek ... constructive revenge."  
  
"I would never order a city destroyed. What do you think I am, a monster?" Orion jumped to his feet, all the rage and injustice he'd felt roaring to the surface in rush. "I have committed no crimes, nor do I intend to! Destroy a city? Destroy Praxus? I would do no such a thing! Never!"  
  
Jazz was on his feet, with his plating clamped tight but no other outward sign of aggression; Orion hadn't even seen him stand up. Prowl's forearm had transformed into a blaster, though he kept it aimed away towards an exterior wall.  
  
Orion spun away from both of them and stalked through the ruins of his apartment. It was just a studio, but he'd enjoyed it.

Now, however, it did not feel like the home he had been so very proud of. The berth under the window had his energon stains still on it from his assault, and there were dents in the walls from his struggles. He stared down at the marks on the wall, then out the window to where a little light filtered down to this level between his building and the next, and stood with his fists balled. As his emotions raged he tried to clench his jaw. He forgot for the first time in almost a day that he no longer had a face, and he winced at the hardware-not-found errors this caused.  
  
His pain must have been palpable in his field. Neither officer said anything, however, but Orion heard footsteps approaching. Somewhat to his surprise it was the coolly reserved Prowl, and not the affable Jazz, who put a hand on his back and said softly, "I believe you."  
  
"Why?" Orion said, a bit bitterly. He knew the authorities were suspicious of him on general principles.  
  
Prowl said, "The mech who tried to mutilate me -- and they tried to do to me the same as was done to you -- said it was for the crime of following the wrong mech, one Optimus Prime."  
  
"That is what they said my name was. Will be."  
  
"I would not follow an evil mech." Prowl's touch was light, but somehow firm. The mech's field was deeply steady, full of reassuring confidence and quiet competence. "Orion, they tried to destroy me, too. I am not an evil mech, nor will I ever become one. Whatever happened ...it was more complex than mere evil."  
  


* * *

  
  
The officers offered to let him have some time alone in his apartment, but he found he was grateful for their company -- and protection. They helped him assemble what few valuables and mementos remained.  
  
His favorite set of four Praxillite crystal drinking cubes were undamaged. A box containing a small set of toy soldiers (both seekers and grounders) that he'd managed to hold onto since childhood had not fared so well. Someone had dumped it out and then stepped on it, but with Jazz's help he found all the soldiers that had been scattered across the floor. He saved his small collection of holocubes and a large stack of datapads (both historical references and novels) that were doubly precious now that he could not access the datanet.  
  
He pulled his box of toiletries and maintenance gear out from under the bed. It, too, had been searched, though everything seemed to be there. He had a few bottles of solvent, detergent, wax, assorted oils, hydraulic fluid, and joint lube, and a couple unused filters. There was also a small but very high quality case of brushes, air wands, water picks, screwdrivers, wrenches, spare nuts and bolts, energon line patches, and assorted other cleaning, maintenance, and minor first aid tools. The kit was a gift from Dion and Ariel, and he clutched it in both hands before carefully subspacing it.  
  
"Done," he said, quietly.  
  
"We'll walk with you to the internment." Jazz said, "Ah knew Ironhide 'n Blaster, an' Prowler knew 'Hide too."  
  


* * *

  
  
The two officers could have driven to the temple far more easily than they walked, but walk they did. Both were quiet, even though he didn't think that 'quiet' was Jazz's natural state.  
  
He was glad for their presence when the temple guards tried to block his way. "No Defectives," the guard said.  
  
"He's not decommissioned yet," Jazz growled. "Check him against the registry."  
  
The guard, a big and burly military mech, looked like he might have denied Optimus access under general principles if he'd been alone. However, while he gave both Jazz and Prowl dubious looks, and sneered at Orion, the guard let them pass.  
  
There was quite a crowd for this internment. Murmurs and pointing came from many of the mourners, and no few muttered objections from those who didn't recognize his frame. Those who _did_ recognize him whispered among themselves, and cast him pitying looks. Orion summoned up all his dignity, squared his shoulders, folded his arms across his chest, and headed for his place near the front of the crowd.  
  
The priests had, fortunately, been told (warned?) he would attend. He was Dion's next of kin as Dion had no close living family either and they'd long been each other's legal kin, and that meant he was, by rights, assigned a spot near the front. Ariel's creators were already seated, but rose as he approached his assigned place. He was relieved to see he was next to them, and Prowl and Jazz had seats not far away.  
  
"Orion," Ariel's sire said, drawing him into a tight hug. "We heard what happened. Are you ... pit, I won't ask if you're okay, but can I help you with anything?"  
  
He'd known this mech for as long as he could recall. Once, he'd been small enough for Azure to scoop aloft. Now, he towered over the slim older mech, but all he wanted to do was to burrow into the arms of a trusted elder.  
  
He could feel the raw grief in Azure's field, and that of Riff, behind him. The two were hurting terribly.  
  
"I've ... got a place to stay. I'll send you two my address." He reached out and drew Riff into the hug too.  
  
"You're like a son to us," Riff said, "you will keep in touch."  
  
"They're trying to declare you Classless," Azure said, clearly deeply distressed. "Ariel ... Ariel loved you so much. You know she planned on asking you to bond, soon? As soon as she graduated. She said you'd never get the nerve to ask her!"  
  
"She was probably right," he admitted. "I'm ... sorry for that."  
  
"Don't be. She _loved_ you."  
  
"Was she really going to ask me?"  
  
"Yes. You would have been our son in truth, if you'd have said yes."  
  
"I would have said yes," he confirmed, quietly, gripping them tighter. "Primus, yes."  
  


* * *

  
  
He didn't remember much of the rest of the interment. He assumed the priests spoke of returning the bodies to Primus (even though everyone knew working class mecha were recycled, not smelted in the heat of Cybertron's molten core) and he assumed he paid his respects with appropriate social grace, but he just couldn't remember.  
  
He couldn't recall much of the walk back to the shuttleport, either. Prowl and Jazz accompanied him, but if they spoke, his processor had glitched on the details. They must have said something to him, however, for he found they'd given him their comm numbers. Somehow, he _had_ managed to save that data to his processor, even if he did not know when or how. It was simply there.  
  
Skyfire bore him in silence back to Kaon. He thought perhaps he was being rude, but the shuttle said nothing. Skyfire piped quiet music into his cabin, and tried to provide him with a cube of energon. He had vague memories of declining the energon, and Skyfire insisting he could afford a cube. He hadn't wanted to take his mask off and reveal the ruins of his face. Also, while Ratchet had given him a pump and tubing to fuel with, he wasn't entirely sure he could thread the tube down his intake and into his tank without Ratchet's help. If he got it wrong he'd gag, and he didn't want to purge on Skyfire's cabin floor.

He did remember simply telling Skyfire he wasn't hungry. That had been a lie, but better than the alternative.

Skyfire dropped him off at the clinic. While he was gone, Ratchet had cleaned out the promised spare room.  
  
He couldn't seem to power down. The room had a few small shelves that had once held Ratchet's supplies; his extensive collection of datapads filled them to overflowing. His maintenance kit fit under the bed.

  
The berth took up half the floor space in the room. The room was, literally, a large closet. The berth still wasn't quite long enough for him to stretch out on fully, but it was better than recharging on the floor or on a gurney somewhere.  
  
The room had a small, horizontally narrow, window up high. When he peered out it, he realized that the basement window was at ground level. He could see the feet of passing mecha on a potholed street.  
  
There were no curtains.  
  
Inspiration struck. His drinking cubes were frosted; they would let light through, but they worked quite well to block prying eyes. He lined them up on the windowsill, where the four of them fit almost perfectly.  
  
The only think remaining were his toy soldiers. After some consideration, he left them in his subspace. He'd had them a very long time and they would be safer in his subspace than anywhere else.  
  
He still couldn't recharge.  
  
He tried to read a few historical bookfiles; he found this tedious, as he was used to streaming data over a dataport. Without his dataports, optically scanning words on the datapads was slow and irritating. It was fine for poetry or novels, which were best consumed slowly and savored, but he wasn't in a mood for entertainment. Still, he just couldn't sleep -- he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to sleep normally again -- so he was sitting on his berth, back to the wall, when he heard running feet on the street. Someone began to pound on the front door.  
  
It was very early in the morning; Orion rolled to his feet, and put the book away, knowing that anyone who came to a clinic at this hour probably had an emergency. Ratchet might need his help.  
  
The medic stumbled out of his room just as Orion made it up the stairs to the main floor. Ratchet, grumbling under his breath, brushed past Orion, clomped to the front door and cautiously cracked it. He demanded, "What is it?"  
  
A plasma cannon erupted from outside, blowing the medic backwards. Orion screamed, and jumped aside, as blistering heat washed across his frame. He kept rolling, diving for cover behind the receptionist's desk, certain Ratchet was dead. The attack he'd been fearing had happened again, and he found he was frozen, once he stopped moving, too startled and terrified to _think._ The only thought in his head was _PRIMUS, NO NO NO NO NOT AGAIN NO!_  
  
Ratchet's swearing was nearly as deafening as the roar of plasma had been. The medic, blackened and shimmering with heat waves, roared back to his feet. One of his hands had transformed into a rotary saw, and he had a blaster of his own in his other hand. Orion, shocked out of his nearly glitched thought patterns, watched in astonishment as the medic shot across the room and tackled his assailant with brutal force. He had been _sure_ Ratchet was dead!  
  
"Don't kill him!" Orion shouted to Ratchet, as he found himself unexpectedly able to think again. "They need him for questioning!"  
  
The mech's black armor made his identification obvious: he was of the same group that had attacked Orion, and likely the others.  
  
Faster than Orion would have believed possible, Ratchet had the mech disabled and trussed with stasis cuffs: Wrists, knees, ankles. Ratchet was just about to administer a sedative to his new prisoner when a bemused voice rumbled, "Trouble, doctor?"

Orion would have panicked if he hadn't met this mech before. He was, actually, relieved to see him. Megatron was a known quantity, and likely very good protection.  
  
"Yes," Ratchet growled at the spiky, silver, massive gladiator looming in his doorway. He plunged the syringe into his captive's energon line, ignoring the mech's muffled swearing. "If you're not too badly injured, help me move him."  
  
Megatron stepped through the ruined doorway and said mildly, "I see you haven't lost your touch."  
  
"Not much of a challenge. And he needed a bigger gun than that if he was going to hurt me." Ratchet glanced down at his heavily armored chest. A lesser mech, Orion thought, might have been dead of a vaporized spark chamber. Ratchet's chest plating was a bit warped and blackened, but he didn't appear to have any major damage. Orion recalled hearing that Ratchet was a decomissioned wartime medic, but he was still rather impressed.  
  
Ratchet complained, "I'm going to need bodywork, slaggit. Orion, what's the comm number for those friends of yours? If what you told me last night is true, it seems I'm on their target list too."  
  
Megatron started to bend over to take the trussed and sedated mech's ankles, but a hitch in his movement alerted the medic to an injury. Sharply, Ratchet demanded, "What did you do to your shoulder? Pit, I'm sick of patching up gladiators who are too big and dumb to find another line of work."  
  
The big warrior slanted a sideways look at Ratchet, and said mildly, "I was a target of an assault."  
  
"You? Were they suicidal?"  
  
A low rumble. "Apparently. There is a good bit less left of them than your assailant."  
  
Ratchet's field flared with dark amusement. "I'll bet."  
  
"I was coming to you for repairs when I heard the plasma fire." Megatron rotated his injured shoulder. This caused an alarming grinding noise from the gears. His pauldron was melted, exposing damaged workings underneath. He had to be in pain, but to Orion's fascination, he didn't show any sign of it.  
  
Ratchet lifted an optic ridge. "What did they shoot you with?"  
  
"A much bigger cannon than this one." Megatron's armor was substantially thicker than Ratchet's; Orion had been wondering the same thing as Ratchet.

Megatron hooked the attacker's plasma cannon with his toe and flipped it up into his hand. Orion expected that he'd subspace it, but instead, he handed the weapon butt first to Orion. "You may need this someday. Kaon's not a nice place to live."  
  
Orion had never owned a weapon, though like most Cybertronians, he'd spent some time at a recreational shooting range. He'd used rented weapons. Blowing things up was fun, and an enjoyable social activity. (He remembered Dion whooping in delight after an especially difficult shot he'd made, and his spark seized with momentary grief.)  
  
He gripped the weapon clumsily in his claws, stared at it a moment, found the safety, flicked the safety on, and subspaced it. It was a welcome weight; he felt just a little less vulnerable.  
  
"Orion, help me with this slagger. Megatron, go sit. The more you move, the more you damage those gears. You're expensive enough to fix without needing to rebuild your entire rotator cuff."  
  
Megatron, somewhat to Orion's surprise, obeyed meekly. The gladiator looked fierce, but he'd been nothing but well mannered every time that Orion had met him.  
  


* * *

 

  
The fastest way to get from one point to another on Cybertron was by ground bridge. It was also by far the most expensive, but Jazz didn't feel the slightest bit sorry about the cost to taxpayers. Something very bad was up, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it quickly. He was _delighted_ that Ratchet had captured one of the assassins alive. It meant a second chance at an interrogation, and this time, he'd damn well be aware of possible self destructive coding! 

Prowl frowned just a little, and carefully stepped over a puddle of noxious fluid in the gutter. Jazz, following, couldn't help but think that the Praxian's white paint was far better suited for bright and clean Praxus than a rough neighborhood in Kaon. Jazz's own predominately glossy black paint could be just as bad about showing dirt as Prowl's white, but at least it blended in with the shadows better. Kaon had lots of shadows, and Prowl's armor stood out like a beacon.  
  
He'd known Prowl for a few vorns; the enforcer was his contact in Praxus. Prowl was, he'd discovered, frighteningly intelligent, not quite as stiff as he seemed on first impression, and fiercely dedicated to his job. He was an honorable mech, in a world were honor and integrity were growing increasingly scarce, and Jazz liked him. Pit knew how few mecha went into law enforcement with good intentions. Prowl had.  
  
Jazz was completely unsurprised that Prowl's face had been among the memories he'd downloaded from the dead assassin, before the assassin had managed to slag his own processor. Prowl, it seemed, was a key player in some future disaster.  
  
"It does look like plasma blaster damage." Prowl said, stopping across the street from the damaged clinic's front entrance.  
  
"That's what Orion said. Somebody came in shooting, and they were after the doc, not him." Jazz said, patiently.  
  
"Do you know how many times civilians have sworn to me they heard a military grade plasma weapon only to have it be a civilian stunner?" Prowl cast Jazz a sideways look.  
  
"Yabut, the mecha who came after you and me were carrying plasma weapons." Jazz shrugged. He stepped through the warped doorway only to see wall of spiky silver armor looming in the middle of the room. The warrior who was wearing that impressively theatrical armor had a mangled shoulder, so he was likely in for repairs. Jazz, frowning, realized that the pattern of damage looked to be caused by the combined intense heat and electrical impulse of a plasma weapon.  
  
The mech was a gladiator, by the stylized design of that armor, and had probably been a miner before that. He could tell by the glyphs still engraved on the mech's helm. They spoke of an origin in Tarn, and a classification of _mining labor_. Jazz looked up, way up, at the mech (who was twice his height and likely four times his mass), then asked, "What do ya turn into, an ore cart with attitude?"  
  
Ratchet, behind the gladiator, snorted a laugh. "He's got you there, Megatron. Pit, Jazz, it's been a long time."  
  
"Ratchet." He'd met the medic a few times during the last war with Quintessa. Liked him, too. He was good at his job, wasn't afraid to defend his patients with force, and had a good spark well hidden by a grouchy temper. "Glad t' hear you're looking out for the kid."  
  
Megatron stared down at Jazz, optic ridges drawn together and mouth pressed into a thin line. Ratchet might own weapons grade snark, but Megatron had a rather deadly glower.  
  
He understood that glare, too. Most labor class mecha didn't think much of Sentinel, and Jazz was Sentinel's servant. Orion had doubtless told Megatron who he was. Plus, he'd deliberately antagonized the mech just to see how he would react.  
  
Megatron had been attacked too. Megatron -- and the dead gladiator twins -- were somehow wrapped up in this whole mess. He wanted to know how Megatron fit. His best guess was that the twins and Megatron fit together, but he didn't know how or why. He couldn't figure out how gladiators would get involved with the Prime-to-be.  
  
Prowl said, to Megatron, "Don't mind my friend here, please. We're both trying to get to the bottom of recent events. His humor is sometimes lacking, however, and for that I apologize."  
  
"Plasma drill." Megatron rumbled.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I turn into a plasma drill. It is," the gladiator sneered, "a frame type used to make large holes in the ground."  
  
Jazz blinked. He hadn't expected a literal answer.  
  
Megatron produced a piece of equipment from his subspace. "This is a plasma cannon made from the body of a miner."  
  
"Gruesome," Jazz said, in a tone that indicated _cool_. "I take it that a plasma drill can be modified into a cannon?"  
  
"Easily enough." Megatron abruptly transformed his arm to display the business end of an identical device mounted to his forearm. Jazz suspected it had a powerful kick, and Megatron likely transformed into a solid base, perhaps a tracked vehicle, with his arm becoming the plasma drill. Drilling would require absolutely steady aim. Shooting at things, not so much; you could fire in short pulses, reacquiring the target between each blast.  
  
Jazz, who was packing formidable firepower for the frame of a minibot, knew all about managing recoil.  
  
Prowl had tensed when the weapons appeared. Jazz, who'd already sized Megatron up as the type who'd give you ample and very clear warning before he ripped you in half, simply waited with curiosity for Megatron to make his point.  
  
And make a point Megatron did. With a couple skilled twists, he removed the disembodied laser drill's power source and then broke it down further to display a serial number.  
  
Prowl peered at it, uncomprehending.  
  
Jazz, having noted the extreme similarity between the piece of equipment held  Megatron's left hand, and the one permanently mounted to his right arm, said, "Same serial number on yours?"  
  
Megatron grunted and transformed his own cannon to show the number. "Yes. I find I am rather disturbed by this. How did you know?"  
  
"Lucky guess. How much has Orion told you?"  
  
"Everything he knew, while we were waiting for you to arrive. He believes he was assaulted by mechanisms from the future.  It appears the same enemies came after myself and the doctor. They used my own ... weapon ... on me."  
  
"They're clearly out for revenge, and if you were an ally to the future Prime here ..." Jazz gestured at Orion, who made a loud protesting noise, "... killing you with your own signature weapon would make a sick sort of sense."  
  
Megatron grunted. It might have been agreement.  
  
"Jazz, I suggest that you ... do your thing ... with the prisoner." Prowl couldn't keep the distaste out of his voice. He didn't like Jazz's primary function, which was hacking criminals, though he accepted the need. "I will have a discussion with the Kaonian police force. I am surprised they are not here yet."  
  


Jazz wasn't surprised at all. He was far more familiar with Kaon than Prowl. "Good luck with that chat," he told Prowl, then turned to Ratchet. "Let's see this prisoner of yours."

He was looking forward, he thought, to getting some _answers_. He followed Ratchet into a back room with eager anticipation of the interrogation to come.

"Here's the reversal agent to the sedative." Ratchet said, voice a bit reserved. He held out a syringe, which Jazz took, and subspaced. "Need anything else from me?"" 

"Nah, mech. Just time. And some luck."

"Good luck," Ratchet said, and then excused himself. "I'd rather not watch, if you don't mind. I'm going to go comm Wheeljack to come help me fix Megatron. If they come after us again, he's _nasty_ in a fight. He's my priority right now."

"Figured," Jazz said. He waited until the door slid shut, and then sat down on a chair beside the unconscious prisoner. He had to get this right, before more mecha were attacked ...


End file.
